Elegance

No elegance is
ascribed to sweat: dripping from
the carpenter's nose

onto the clean ply-
wood. Yet I recall in my
big sheepskin how I

sweated in the snow,
heaving the axe and peavey,
and how sweet it was.

And how jubilee
cried in jay-song to the gray
sky, and the white owl

sailed on extended
wings unerringly among
the snow-clad spruces.

by Hayden Carruth