In the Valley of the Magra
In June, above Pontrèmoli, high in the Lunigiana,
The pollen-colored chestnut blooms
sweep like a long cloth
Snapped open over the bunched treetops
And up the mountain as far as the almost-Alpine meadows.
At dusk, in the half-light, they appear
Like stars come through the roots of the great trees from another sky.
Or tears, with my glasses off.
Sometimes they seem like that
Just as the light fades and the dakness darkens for good.
Or that's the way I remember it when the afternoon thunderstorms
Tumble out of the Blue Ridge,
And distant bombardments muscle in
across the line
Like God's solitude or God's shadow,
The loose consistency of mortar and river stone
Under my fingers where I leaned out
Over it all,
isolate farm lights
Starting to take the color on, the way I remember it...
Returned to the Yaak Cabin, I Overhear an Old Greek Song
Back at the west window, Basin Creek
Stumbling its mantra out in a slurred, midsummer monotone,
Sunshine in planes and clean sheets
Over the yarrow and lodgepole pine—
We spend our whole lives in the same place and never leave,
Pine squirrels and butterflies at work in a deep dither,
Bumblebee likewise, wind with a slight hitch in its get-along.
Dead heads on the lilac bush, daisies
Long-legged forest of stalks in a white throw across the field
Above the ford and deer path,
Candor of marble, candor of bone—
We spend our whole lives in the same place and never leave,
The head of Orpheus bobbing in the slatch, his song
Still beckoning from his still-bloody lips, bright as a bee's heart.