THOUGHTS FROM WRITINGS 

 barefoot children ask why the sea is 

 there, or why it does not quite dry up 

 when it ebbs. He is unconscious ; he 

 lives without thinking about living; 

 and if the sunshine were a hundred 

 hours long, still it would not be long 

 enough. No, never enough of sun and 

 sliding shadows that come like a hand 

 over the table to lovingly reach our 

 shoulder, never enough of the grass 

 that smells sweet as a flower, not if we 

 could live years and years equal in 

 number to the tides that have ebbed 

 and flowed, counting backwards four 

 years to every day and night, backward 

 still till we found out which came first, 

 the night or the day. 

 The scarlet-dotted fly knows nothing of 

 the names of the grasses that grow here 

 where the sward nears the sea, and 

 thinking of him I have decided not to 

 wilfully seek to learn any more of their 

 names either. My big grass book I 



94 



