THE ATHLETE

One of these days
Of the high-jumping sun
And gay relays
Of robins and blue jays,
I will throw
(At twilight
When the blood
Flashes in webs
Under my liquid skin)
The discus of the bronze moon
Over the old mark, past the fields
Of foaming clover and the mountains
And the staggering seas,
Westward by the cricketing stars.
Then in the long and grieving grasses
I will crouch with silver bones
To watch the eastern sea
For chills of light,
And when it comes
Back, skimming in its sunny speed,
Out of the grasses, spring,
Catch it, and curved in classical whirl,
Give it again, with twanging brawn,
Another and another fling
To make the air
Flashing with a rare
Rapidity of inexhaustible dawns.
And I will go, then,
Snorting golden fogs
Stamping in the long-distance,
Up the lonely trails
From valleys and waste plains,
High-jumping, and in relays
With the robins and blue jays.