New Collected Poems (29 page)

In darkening air, their fleeces glow as he

Puts down the salt, a handful at a place,

Along the path. At last, the bucket empty,

He stands, watching the sheep, the deepening sky,

The few small stars already pointing out.

Now may he come to that good rest again.

What did I learn from him?

He taught the difference

Between good work and sham,

Between nonsense and sense.

He taught me sentences,

Outspoken fact for fact,

In swift coherences

Discriminate and exact.

He served with mind and hand

What we were hoping for:

The small house on the land,

The shade tree by the door,

Garden, smokehouse, and cellar,

Granary, crib, and loft

Abounding, and no year

Lived at the next year's cost.

He kept in mind, alive,

The idea of the dead:

“A steer should graze and thrive

Wherever he lowers his head.”

He said his father's saying.

We were standing on the hill

To watch the cattle grazing

As the gray evening fell.

“Look. See that this is good,

And then you won't forget.”

I saw it as he said,

And I have not forgot.

Having lived long in time,

he lives now in timelessness

without sorrow, made perfect

by our never finished love,

by our compassion and forgiveness,

and by his happiness in receiving

these gifts we give. Here in time

we are added to one another forever.

I dreamed of my father when he was old.

We went to see some horses in a field;

they were sorrels, as red almost as blood,

the light gold on their shoulders and haunches.

Though they came to us, all a-tremble

with curiosity and snorty with caution,

they had never known bridle or harness.

My father walked among them, admiring,

for he was a knower of horses, and these were fine.

He leaned on a cane and dragged his feet

along the ground in hurried little steps

so that I called to him to take care, take care,

as the horses stamped and frolicked around him.

But while I warned, he seized the mane

of the nearest one. “It'll be all right,”

he said, and then from his broken stance

he leapt astride, and sat lithe and straight

and strong in the sun's unshadowed excellence.

 

 

 

The dust motes float

and swerve in the sunbeam,

as lively as worlds,

and I remember my brother

when we were boys:

“We may be living on an atom

in somebody's wallpaper.”

The young woodland remembers

the old, a dreamer dreaming

of an old holy book,

an old set of instructions,

and the soil under the grass

is dreaming of a young forest,

and under the pavement the soil

is dreaming of grass.

What wonder have you done to me?

In binding love you set me free.

These sixty years the wonder prove:

I bring you aged a young man's love.

I see you down there, white-haired

among the green leaves,

picking the ripe raspberries,

and I think, “Forty-two years!”

We are the you and I who were

they whom we remember.

Stone

of the earth

made

of its own weight

light

If you imagine

others are there,

you are there yourself.

What year

does the phoebe

think it is?

Light and wind are running

over the headed grass

as though the hill had

melted and now flowed.

Why all the embarrassment

about being happy?

Sometimes I'm as happy

as a sleeping dog,

and for the same reasons,

and for others.

After the storm and the new

stillness of the snow, he returns

to the graveyard, as though

he might lift the white coverlet,

slip in beside her as he used to do,

and again feel, beneath his hand,

her flesh quicken and turn warm.

But he is not her husband now.

To participate in resurrection, one

first must be dead. And he goes

back into the whitened world, alive.

In a dream I go

out into the sunlit street

and I see a boy walking

clear-eyed in the light.

I recognize him, he is

Bill Lippert, wearing the gray

uniform of the school

we attended many years ago.

And then I see that my brother

is with me in the dream,

dressed too in the old uniform.

Our friend looks as he did

when we first knew him,

and until I wake I believe

I will die of grief, for I know

that this boy grew into a man

who was a faithful friend

who died.

Where I stood,

seeing and knowing, was time,

where we die of grief. And surely

the bright street of my dream,

in which we saw again

our old friend as a boy

clear-eyed in innocence of his death,

was some quickly-crossed

small inlet of eternity.

How fine to have a radio

and beautiful music playing

while I sit at rest in the evening.

How fine to hear through the music

the cries of wild geese on the river.