Flyleaf, Tractatus
I. A flock of birds down where it’s still, where, each morning, fishermen throw their nets into the river, and they flock in the wide fields. The sky is clearing. A rising wind.
II. And downriver down past the birch and the oak trees marked by tides and high water where fishermen bring in their boats and their nets from the sea. * I want you to have these freshwater shells. I found them in the rushes at the mouth of the river and there were boat moorings and fishing crates and there were fishermen emptying their nets in the rain.
III. A farmer cuts the sweet-grass before it flowers and hay dries and birds nest.