Before

I always thought death would be like traveling

in a car, moving through the desert,

the earth a little darker than sky at the horizon,

that your life would settle like the end of a day

and you would think of everyone you ever met,

that you would be the invisible passenger,

quiet in the car, moving through the night,

forever, with the beautiful thought of home

Vernal Equinox

The scent of hyacinths, like a pale mist, lies between me and my book;

And the South Wind, washing through the room,

Makes the candles quiver.

My nerves sting at a spatter of rain on the shutter,

And I am uneasy with the thrusting of green shoots

Outside, in the night.


Why are you not here to overpower me with your tense and urgent love?

Awake

I lay down in my bed and went to sleep

but only after worrying that the pain

that came up in my chest, seemingly deep

inside it where my heart was, was a plain

signal that I might not survive the night

and could be lying cold beside my wife

when she got up, as she does, with the light,

to start another day in her own life,

while mine was over, unbeknown to us,

including me. As I was worrying

I went to sleep and woke up in four hours

to use the bathroom. Birds had begun to sing.

Two dogs were barking. Nothing perilous

had come to find us. What was ours was ours.

Pine tree tops

in the blue night

frost haze, the sky glows

with the moon

pine tree tops

bend snow-blue, fade

into sky, frost, starlight.

the creak of boots.

rabbit tracks, deer tracks,

what do we know.

White Apples

when my father had been dead a week

I woke

with his voice in my ear

I sat up in bed

and held my breath

and stared at the pale closed door



white apples and the taste of stone



if he called again

I would put on my coat and galoshes

Sheep in Fog

The hills step off into whiteness.

People or stars

Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.



The train leaves a line of breath.

O slow

Horse the colour of rust,



Hooves, dolorous bells -

All morning the

Morning has been blackening,



A flower left out.

My bones hold a stillness, the far

Fields melt my heart.



They threaten

To let me through to a heaven

Starless and fatherless, a dark water.