Mary Eastwood Knevels

THE HILLS repass me, the giant hills;

Crossing and recrossing each other like great animals,

Enormous circles closing and widening around me.

Here at the gully’s edge I see their bodies

Shutting out the sky, processions of them—

Whither do they journey, whence have they come?

Humped camels, and the bulky rhinoceros,

Between them the sliding leopard,

And beyond again the stone-colored gray of the elephant;

All passing, all silent, touring the horizon,

To the dull music of the sun.

O endless procession, passing and repassing!—

Hunched bodies, and soundless music;

And the undulations, living, animal, against the sky!