The light, lambent on the goldenrod dawn to dusk

and spreading into the valley this morning,

has almost broken my heart.

 

Starting from the high meadow above Danny Hammond’s farm

it illuminated the fields and in the distance,

where hay has been mowed and mounded into rows,

 

it warmed the tractor and the wagons as they waited

for the mower to return.

It has cut silhouettes of cows and placed them against the barn.

 

Now at five-thirty in the afternoon, sowing a rosy tint,

it lifts from the chin to the cheeks to the forehead of my friend Carol,

and is gone, leaving us face to face

in my front yard, the blue chill of its absence climbing my back.

 

From a forthcoming collection, The Brown Thrasher.

Used here with the author’s permission.