ISSUE: Autumn 1955
Hard as a man’s in a vineyard
The feet of the sun are trampling
The meadows, pressing the fields. Silence
Dances. Fragrance blazes. Noonward
A fresh sweetness
beats up from the deep heat.
Whitest clouds hugely
carve heaven out of the sky.
At a shadow’s prick some bird
From a viewless bough
arrows, is lost to view
Among thicker boughs: it is fright’s gift
To the festival of noon.
Brilliantly
Stillness
renews the dance.
Perhaps the grave
Pines, late, in their darkening grove
Will interpret it.
