The Steeple Jack In sudden weather he works, he is thus resourceful, and under remnant reverence he sees the sun’s raw angles reaching for him from below.

Sometimes he looks up toward distant hills and old oaks, and sometimes looks inward—among old wood, crowded up like mushrooms at a table, all mixtures of rotting sweetness and // detergent,

Sometimes when he should, he is waiting—\n bewildered at interrupted shadows, joy of distance where the light curves off, lichtensteining each drop in summer, creates states of low-flown origins.

Not all neon glare shines, every sort captures villainous or whatever clutches at dusk, disallowing—churning back to Emerson: “Sometimes the prophet in me is sick but wise.”

• Marianne Moore