The Touching
The months of absence hurry.
In sleep I touch her skin
And wake in the stain of dawn, in fury
Once more to know
It was her pillow
That mimicked the touch of a dead woman.
Pond Afternoons
When early July's
Arrival quieted the spring's black flies,
We spent green afternoons
Stretched on the moss
Beside dark Eagle Pond, and heard across
Its distances the calling of the loons.
The days swam by,
Lazy with slow content and the hawk's cry.
We lost ambition's rage,
Forgot it all,
Forgot Jane Kenyon, forgot Donald Hall,
And sleepily half-glanced at a bright page.
Day after day
We crossed the flaking railroad tracks and lay
In the slant August sun
To nap and read
Beneath an oak, by the pond's pickerelweed.
Then acorns fell: These days were almost done.
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