I’ve known ere now an interfering branch Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me. But that was in the woods, to hold my hand From striking at another alder’s roots, And that was, as I say, an alder branch. This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one day Behind me on the snow in…

Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. There is nothing like a paradox to entice the mind to discover a suggested secret….