FROM STEVENS, COLLECTED POETRY & PROSE
From uncollected poems: SECRET MAN
The sounds of rain on the roof
Are like the sound of doves.
It is long since there have been doves
On any house of mine.
It is better for me
In the rushes of autumn wind
To embrace autumn, without turning
To remember summer.
Besides, the world is a tower.
Its winds are blue.
The rain falls at its base,
Summers sink from it.
The doves will fly round.
When morning comes
The high clouds will move,
Nobly as autumn moves.
The man of autumn,
Behind its melancholy mask,
Will laugh in the brown grass,
Will shout from the tower’s rim.