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The Troubles That Women Start Are Men

On the porch, unbreeched shotgun dangling
Across one arm, just after the killing,
The murderer, Billy Winkles, made polite
Small talk with my father while we waited
For the sheriff to come. The reek of cordite
Still loomed above the sheeted corpse, his uncle
Ben, whose various dark and viscous organs
Jeweled the lawn. “Want some coffee, Von?”

Blue Ridge

Up there on the mountain road, the fireworks
blistered and subsided, for once at eye level:
spatter of light like water flicked from the fingers;
the brief emergent pattern; and after the afterimage bled
from the night sky, a delayed and muffled thud
that must have seemed enormous down below,
the sound concomitant with the arranged
threat of fire above the bleachers.
I stood as tall and straight as possible,

Burning Trash

At night—the light turned off, the filament
Unburdened of its atom-eating charge,
His wife asleep, her breathing dipping low
To touch a swampy source—he thought of death.
Her father's hilltop home allowed him time
To sense the nothing standing like a sheet
Of speckless glass behind his human future.
He had two comforts he could see, just two.

An Xmas Murder

He sits at the table, cloudlight of March
One tone with his hair, gray-silver on silver.
Midday fare in Vermont is basic enough.
In West Newbury, eggs and toast will do—
Though our doctor’ s had his sips of wine as well.
“Just don’ t be fooled. They’ re not as nice as you
Think they are. Live here a few more winters,
You’ ll get to know them clearer, and vice-versa.”
Three years now, and we’ re still finding our way;
Newcomers need a guide to show them the ropes,
And he has been explaining township and county

Clear-seeing

The clairvoyante, a major general’ s wife,
The secretaries’ sibyl, read the letters
They brought her from their GI soldier-lovers,
Interpreting the script. I went along
One afternoon with writing of my own.
“This writing is by one you cannot trust,”
She frowned, and all the secretaries smiled.
But when she took my palm, she read the brown
Fingers for too much smoking and the lines
Of time and fate for a long and famous life.
“Soon you will take a trip by land and sea.”
Across the hall, her husband, half asleep

Clothes

Walking back to the office after lunch,
I saw Hans. “Mister Isham, Mister Isham,”
He called out in his hurry, “Herr Wegner needs you.
A woman waiting for a border pass
Took poison, she is dead, and the police
Are there to take the body.” In the hall,
The secretaries stood outside their doors
Silently waiting with Wegner. “Sir,” he said,
“It was her answer on the questionnaire,
A clerk for the Gestapo. So it was.”
Within the outer office, by the row
Of wooden chairs, one lying on its side,

from The Task, Book I: The Sofa

Thou know’ st my praise of nature most sincere,
And that my raptures are not conjur’ d up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,
But genuine, and art partner of them all.
How oft upon yon eminence our pace
Has slacken’ d to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While admiration, feeding at the eye,
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
Thence with what pleasure have we just discern’ d
The distant plough slow-moving, and beside
His lab’ ring team, that swerv’ d not from the track,

from The Task, Book II: The Time-Piece

England, with all thy faults, I love thee still
My country! and while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain’ d to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deform’ d
With dripping rains, or wither’ d by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies
And fields without a flow’ r, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia’ s groves
Of golden fruitage and her myrtle bow’ rs.
To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime

from The Task, Book VI: The Winter Walk at Noon

Thus heav’ n-ward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restor’ d.
So God has greatly purpos’ d; who would else
In his dishonour’ d works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong’ d without redress.
Haste then, and wheel away a shatter’ d world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons! we would see,
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and hate his laws,
And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,

Learning the Trees

Before you can learn the trees, you have to learn
The language of the trees. That’ s done indoors,
Out of a book, which now you think of it
Is one of the transformations of a tree.

The words themselves are a delight to learn,
You might be in a foreign land of terms
Like samara, capsule, drupe, legume and pome,
Where bark is papery, plated, warty or smooth.

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