March Night

I shook off the house like a hooded cape,
And came out, free, into the March-blown street…
At a lash of the gale, at a sight of the cloud-tattered skies,
As a coat discarded,
I shook off civilization
And became wild,
And my naked soul raced the clouds,
And the flavor of the Earth was fresh and primitive…

—James Oppenheim (1882–1932), War and Laughter, 1916

The spaces

And do not forget the spaces. When earth’s
Heaviness pulls hard, turn to the spaces.
Their breezes will brace us — and we shall know.

—Cave A. Outlaw (1900–1996), Fugitive Hour, 1950