|
Bad news arrives in her distinctive hand.
The cancer has returned, this time
to his brain. Surgery impossible,
treatment under way. Hair loss, bouts
of sleeplessness and agitation at night,
exhaustion during the day.
I snap the blue leash onto the D-ring
of the dog's collar, and we cross
Route 4, then cut through the hayfield
to the pond road, where I let him run
along with my morbidity.
The trees have leafed out—only just—
and the air is misty with sap.
So green, so brightly, richly succulent,
this arbor over the road…
Sunlight penetrates in golden drops.
We come to the place where a neighbor
is taking timber from his land.
There's a smell of lacerated earth
and pine. Hardwood smells different.
His truck is gone.
Now you can see well up the slope,
see ledges of rock and ferns breaking forth
among the stumps and cast-aside limbs
and branches.
The place will heal itself in time, first
with weeds—goldenrod, cinquefoil, moth
mullein—then blackberries, sapling
pine, deciduous trees…But for now
the dog rolls, jovial, in the pungent
disturbance of wood and earth.
I summon him with a word, turn back,
and we go the long way home.
Jane Kenyon
|