The major verbs
beset us in the midst
of a static summer:
to be born, to grow, to love,
to think, to believe, to die,
and while a child
scrapes at the earth
where urns lie buried,
we seek a phrase
that will fix a goal
for tomorrow’s setting out,
− unless we live in the infinitive
like a great wind
out of nowhere,
bearing no leaves,
or like a Buddhist monk
who has thrust back deep in himself
the rationale for the verb to go.