Poems May 1984
High water
Eight days of rain;
the ground refuses more.
My neighbors are morose at the village store.
I’m sick of holding still, sick of indoors,
so I walk through the heavy-headed grasses
to watch the river reach
for the bridge’s wooden planks,
bending the lithe swamp maples
that grow along the banks.
Nothing but trouble comes to mind
as I lean over the rusty iron rail.
I know of plenty, in detail, that is not
my own. I nudge a pebble over the edge.
It drops with a thunk into the water—
dark, voluminous, and clear,
and moving headlong away from here.
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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 2 Number 9, on page 50
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