On the warm shore I frequently sat
and pondered the ghosts.
They were apparently charmed.
They hovered around me and
danced in their way
to this ribbed tune

strewn over with dark hissing.  

          I had formerly come to these pines adventurously, as skyrockets to air, to make my own thread among the gentle worms. At the edge of the water I often hung to a fire, and when done, without companion I would throw the burning nights high and watch them softly descend.

They said
when we reached the bottom,
we would all be whistling.
Then they took the moon.

          Soon everything in the forest was quenched. We were
suddenly groping in total wrecks. 

____

Old-fashioned American Transcendentalism meets modern suburbia/techno-capitalism/urban sprawl in something of a (loving) pastiche of Thoreau. Recommended reading: Walden, Progress and Poverty, Oulipo Compendium.