trees and lines and stickmen
and boulders too big to be less than
a hill heavy rock a motel {sigh}
a main street see the middle
school from here and a parts store nearly
the library and a grocery store below
in the midway
and a park with boulders taller
than 5 men where quail live
and deer play but no dogs are
allowed and they have swings
and a merry-go-round and it’s
almost summer the thrift
store will have summer clothes this
week and this is where the turkeys
go and they have teeter-totters
an hour
after summer equinox
breviaries
bell tone of vespers
two children swimming
among ten thousand salmon
teach the children
how to catch fish
with their hands
that
any trout
interested in taking chances
will kiss their fingers
that
in a summer solstice
bees land on their nose
New Year’s Day
along the barbed fence
two white-tailed deer.
I placed the skull
on a stump, saying,
"There. Now you
can see better."
Knowing this
was not so, and, shamed,
I stayed an hour,
seeing for the deer.
What pain, to wake and miss you!
To wake with a tightened heart,
And mouth reaching forward to kiss you!
This then at last is the dawn, and the bell
Clanging at the farm! Such bewilderment
Comes with the sight of the room, I cannot tell.
It is raining. Down the half-obscure road
Four labourers pass with their scythes
Dejectedly;--a huntsman goes by with his load:
A gun, and a bunched-up deer, its four little feet
Clustered dead.--And this is the dawn
For which I wanted the night to retreat!