Half awake in my Sunday nap / I see three green windows / in three different lights-- / one west, one south, one east. / I have forgotten that old friends are dying. / I have forgotten that I grow middle-aged. / At each window such rustlings! / The trees persist, yeasty and sensuous, / as thick as saints. / I see three wet gargoyles covered with birds. / Their skins shine in the sun like leather. / I'm on my bed as light as a sponge. / Soon it will be summer. / She is my mother. / She will tell me a story and keep me asleep / against her plump and fruity skin. / I see leaves-- / leaves that are washed and innocent, / leaves that never knew a cellar, / born in their own green blood / like the hands of mermaids. / I do not think of the rusty wagon on the walk. / I pay no attention to the red squirrels / that leap like machines beside the house. / I do not remember the real trunks of the trees / that stand beneath the windows / as bulky as artichokes. / I turn like a giant, / secretly watching, secretly knowing, / secretly naming each elegant sea. / I have misplaced the Van Allen belt, / the sewers and the drainage, / the urban renewal and the suburban centers. / I have forgotten the names of the literary critics. / I know what I know. / I am the child I was, / living the life that was mine. / I am young and half asleep. / It is a time of water, a time of trees.