ISSUE: Summer 1977
The horse gallops in the night.
I hear him through my sleep
On the reverberant earth:
The sudden thudding away
Of the field, and the fences
Quivering in the sound.
The red maple blossoms blow down,
Even in the stillness,
Though they cannot be seen.
And the antler on the table,
Like a fork of light,
Glows a tawny ivory,
Remembering winter and the forest floor.
The deer graze up into the mountains,
Now the higher pastures grow
Emerald with safety beneath the wind.
And far away to the north, rocks become
A fortress above the cloudy valley,
Where a hawk leaves red feathers
On one marble stair.
Again there is the sleep of this,
Sleeping, dreaming I am asleep;
And the knowledge: where the wolf-ghosts
Paw the fallen pines and the poet walks
Farther into the canyon, beyond
his house that was our dwelling place.
