7
Under the ordinary
bright gentle light of the place
I look in across a fence
at a bed of wild grasses
stippled with alyssum, with
a few native poppies -- slight,
chill orange, snipped out fi nely.
A poppy is struggling
and the others barely shake;
one of its petals comes loose,
wavering down a kind of
creek of air. Son, you could choose
at such times to be happy,
yet free of your happiness,
knowing that its root is hap --
I'd have had you arriving
so as not to be bemused
in it; say, splashing ashore
as one of a colony
of Greeks fresh from disaster
who glance about expertly.