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a breath
A quiet, cool, spring morning --
the sun up, and its light
crossing things without emphasis,
merely bringing out the pale colors.
Before breakfast, stepping outside
a moment, you can see a part of a
fair blue, distant mountain above
the mixture of neighborhood trees.
It is all so. You want to put it somewhere
inconspicuous in a heavy, dark frame.
late to pray
All around the infrequent little towns
(a few gaunt old stores still in business,
elm-dark residential streets half-way
abandoned, a broken-hearted silence in them)
lies the shining wheat country, gold white
and open, all visible or else nothing;
hill gleams above hill to the smooth rim
of the horizon like the sight of excellence itself.
If you are still holding out here, every street
an elm tunnel opening at either end on the dazzle --
in the afternoon silence all the bright grain
standing motionless takes on a distant look;
and is again a goddess, with child,
and absorbed in that, in being nothing more.