ISSUE: Autumn 1958
I curve my arms over the valley,
I hold this earth in my mind’s crook:
river’s depth and rising hills,
houses and barns, woodlots, fields,
fences criss-crossed, brook and road.
Daily I read the changes of light:
now blue as the butterfly’s wing,
or deeper like the gentian’s petal,
or pink like the summer rose in bud,
or mother of pearl, the sea shell open,
or like a grey wave breaking green,
or pink and blue, the larkspur spike,
or under the cold of clearing sky,
blue, blue, oxide of steel.
Daily I dip from the well of joy
a swallow or two to linger over,
or in the deeper waters meet
the bitter taste that mellows.
