Poetry from Childhood
(These poems were largely about true events or feelings; the event in New Orleans
was true; when I was 16 my roommate, I, and two neighbors watched the kids -- five or less -- dancing for money with perhaps their grandpa late late one Friday night, around midnight; later however in college I got into writing poems based on other people's stories -- moreso than on my own;
did not get back to my own till I wrote "Burning the Japansese Beetles" at the end of sophomore year in college
about a summer job but I still was immersed in myth and such in my college poetry, which made it maybe a bit less accessible than my childhood writing -- you had to know all the myths to really appreciate it perhaps)

A Bird in Hand
(1967)

A bird in the hand 
is worth ten in the bush
if what they say is so.
But I cannot believe them,
for they cannot really know.

A bird in the bush 
is worth ten in the hand,
for I think we can all agree:
a bird in the hand is chained and bound,
while a bird in the bush is free!

* * *

Pitter Pat
(1968)

Pitter pat --
fancy that! --
Comes a kitten! --
Has it mittens?

Soft it walks,
loud it talks --
stumbling,
rumbling.

Now pitter pat 
comes a cat!

* * *

Sunflower Forest
(1969)

I must find my way back to the sunflower forest,
land of my childhood dreams --
there all of the birds sing a greeting in chorus;
it's a place of cool flowing streams!

I'll run so wild, so happy, and oh so free
through the fields of flowers gold!

You may tame the wind but you'll never tame me
though thousands of years unfold!

* * *

I Can
(1969)

I can out-run you,
out-jump you,
out-cry you!

I can out-laugh you,
out-live you,
out-die you!

* * *

Green Waters
(1969)

Green waters,
quiet and still --

You want me to come,
and someday I will!

* * *
Cry, cry, Uratu!

(translated from the Spanish fragment,
"Llora, llora, Uratu," 1971)

Weep, weep Uratu
on the banks of the Yatay:
there is now no Paraquay

Where I was born
as were you.

Cry, cry
Uratu!

* * *

Fourteen
(1971-72)

Fourteen is when
you are too old to stay

and too young 
to go away.

* * *

The Universe
(? 1971 or 1972;
(after reading George Gamow, "1-2-3, Infinity!")

The universe:
a word at first
that seems to be
the things I see,
and then it grows
to things I know,
and then is filled
by things I willed.

My imagination
it is instead,
but cannot fit
inside my head.

* * *

Bourbon St.
(New Orleans, LA, 1974)

Small children dance
on Bourbon St.
They shake their hips 
and stomp their feet

To the tune of the wrinkled man
who plays harmonica
and grins.

On Bourbon St.
small children dance!

With shining coins
stoning them
swiftly does
the crowd move in.