ELBOWS ON THE SKY

  If a man might lean his elbows on the sky

   As farmers lean their weight upon a wall

   To look upon their ample fields that lie

   Heavy with harvest in the yellow Fall,

   Then he might dicker with close-fisted fate,

   Himself decide what to reject or keep

   Before he comes at length beyond the gate

   Where he may choose not anything by sleep.

   Yet if he leaned but once upon a star

   And saw his earth, and himself fugitive,

   As long as breath could keep life's door ajar

   He would be happy but to breathe and live,

   With little care for what he shall be when

   Of death's gray waste he is a citizen.