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cube balanced on one corner
The mockingbird is quiet and stays out of sight.
Absence in the trees; in the heat and bad light
A turtledove begins despairing loudly, across the way.
Home again. The looks of things in each room
Belong with our feelings of two months ago. So this
Is a surprise visit to their wistful presences
When what we'd been wanting was merely to get back.
The yard's inhabited by strange grasses.
The hollow in the top of my great boulder -- dry!
The oak has thrust a harsh little thicket
Of new twigs into one side, in the other
The oleander has thrust a blossoming tip.
In the bottom, yellowed blooms and dry oak leaves, horny-edged.
Dog days. Too late for any but small measures. I clip off
The intrusive growth, brush out leaves and dead blooms,
And brim the stone hollow with cold water. Now, near noon,
Absolutely still, it contains a sharp-cut refl ection
Of the oak bough and oleander leaves and blooms
Arching irregularly over it, with the remote blue
Of the August sky fi lling in behind; a summer-crystal.
as it happens
It was in early middle age
That I saw for the fi rst time
The legendary event --
Fresh water entering salt;
A creek came out from under
Darkness of pines and fi rs