Jane Hirshfield

F L S T [

Like the Small Hole by the Path-Side Something Lives in

Like the small hole by the path-side something lives in,
in me are lives I do not know the names of,

nor the fates of,
nor the hungers of or what they eat.

They eat of me.
Of small and blemished apples in low fields of me
whose rocky streams and droughts I do not drink.

And in my streets — the narrow ones,
unlabeled on the self-map —
they follow stairs down music ears can’ t follow,