—Charles C. Abbott, M.D., Waste-land Wanderings 1887                                  
                                   
CONFESSIONS

I once witnessed a riot in wrendom.
I have insisted that the cardinal-redbird
Is not a mocker. I take it all back.

I am free to confess that woodpeckers
Have failed to interest me.
I know of two fine bowlders* in the meadows,
But I use them only for stepping-stones—
Never as texts. My last public talk
About them was disastrous.

I saw a purple grackle’s nest.
I resolved to climb the tree.
The birds looked on approvingly.

It now remained for me to descend.
Through some strange miscalculation
I failed to secure a footing, and fell.

The scars on my back made an excellent
Map of the Micronesian archipelago.
It most vividly recalled

The apparently instant appearance
Of every woman in the village
When my horse ran away and landed me
In the duck-pond on the common.

ANOTHER CONFESSION

In numerous little sink-holes,
I find the skeletons of small fishes.
I pick them from the mud.

The imprint of their shriveled
Forms is left—fossil
Impressions for the naturalist

Of ten thousand years to come.
This is possible, of course, so
I wrote on the smooth surface

From which I lifted a minnow,
Fundulus multifasciatus 
Will it not startle the paleontologist

Of the indefinite future to chisel
From rock an already labeled fossil?
I trust that he will not go mad.

LATE WANDERINGS

Now that nesting is over, many
Find next to nothing to sing about.

When a blast from the north blows
The brown rushes, above the roar

Can be heard a tone of sadness,
A cry, “We weep! we weep!”

“Keep up, keep up, keep!”
“Chesapeake, O Chesapeake!”

Was there not yet something
That I could watch even
By the gloaming’s uncertain and waning light?