white river poems 411
The cattle have scattered out,
grazing in the fl ats. The light
in the ranch house is as pale
as the last of the stars were.
`I'm getting hungry,' I say.
`I'm ready to go to town
for breakfast.' He says, `Yes, that....'
The Meeker Cafe is old,
high-ceilinged, roomy, and clean,
and busy now -- the talk fl ows
quietly and easily,
without distinctions among
waitresses, customers, cook.
The atmosphere's of that prosy
habitual enjoyment
which those involved don't notice.
And many in here are men
in their fi fties and sixties
who appear to have attained
a sort of charmed condition:
permanently unhurried,
and solid and aff able
(though not unwary) they eat,
and light up pipes and cigars,
and talk, and listen, timeless
and thriving just as they are;
so unlike what Meeker was
with all his agitation
of ideas and projects.
A lean, brown old man comes in,
sits down briskly. The waitress:
`Well, have you got any news?'
He, as if to a question