Keeping the rhyme

By stress and syllable
by change and rhyme and contour
we let the long line pace even awkward to its period.

The short line
we refine and keep for candor.

This we remember:
ember of the fire
catches the word if we but hear
("We must understand what is happening")
and springs to desire,
a bird-right light
sound.

This is the Yule-log that warms December.
This is new grass that springs from the ground.

Robert Duncan, The Opening of the Field, New Directions Paperbook, 1973.