Collected Poems 1943-2004

Over the course of his distinguished sixty-year career, Richard Wilbur has written seventeen collections of poetry, four children's books, and numerous works in prose and translations. This comprehensive collection presents Wilbur's poems, including several new and never before published.In trackless woods, it puzzled me to findFour great rock maples seemingly aligned,As if they had been set out in a rowBefore some house a century ago,To edge the property and lend some shade.I looked to see if ancient wheels had madeOld ruts to which the trees ran parallel,But there were none, so far as I could tell-There'd been no roadway. Nor could I find the squareDepression of a cellar anywhere,And so I tramped on further, to surveyAmazing patterns in a hornbeam sprayOr spirals in a pine cone, under treesNot subject to our stiff geometries.-from "In Trackless Woods"