How shall we adorn <br />Recognition with our speech?— <br />Now the dead firstborn <br />Will lag in the wake of words. <br /> <br />Custom intervenes; <br />We are civil, something more: <br />More than language means, <br />The mute presence mulls and marks. <br /> <br />Almost of a mind, <br />We take measure of the loss; <br />I am slow to find <br />The mere margin of repose. <br /> <br />And one November <br />It was longer in the watch, <br />As if forever, <br />Of the huge ancestral goose. <br /> <br />So much symmetry!— <br />Like the pale angle of time <br />And eternity. <br />The great shape labored and fell. <br /> <br />Quit of hope and hurt, <br />It held a motionless gaze <br />Wide of time, alert, <br />On the dark distant flurry.<br /><br />Navarre Scott Momaday<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/angle-of-geese/
