Adrienne Rich - In the Woods lyrics

"Difficult ordinary happiness, "
No one nowadays believes in you
I shift, full length on the blanket
To fix the sun precisely

Behind the pine-tree's crest
So light spreads through the needles
Alive as water just
Where a snake has surfaced

Unreal as water in green crystal
Bad news is always arriving
"We're hiders, hiding from something bad, "
Sings the little boy

Writing these words in the woods
I feel like a traitor to my friends
Even to my enemies the common lot's to die

A stranger's death and lie
Rouged in the coffin, in a dress
Chosen by the funeral director
Perhaps that's why we never

See clocks on public buildings any more
A fact no architect will mention
We're hiders, hiding from something bad
Most of the time

Yet, and outrageously, something good
Finds us, found me this morning
Lying on a dusty blanket
Among the burnt-out Indian pipes

And bursting-open lady's-slippers
My soul, my helicopter, whirred
Distantly, by habit, over
The old pond with the half-drowned boat

Toward which it always veers
For consolation: ego's Arcady:
Leaving the body stuck
Like a leaf against a screen -

Happiness! how many times
I've stranded on that word
At the edge of that pond seen
As if through tears, the dragon-fly -

Only to find it all
Going differently for once
This time: my soul wheeled back
And burst into my body

Found! Ready or not if I move now, the sun
Naked between the trees
Will melt me as I lie