Song 1
A second crop of hay lies cut and turned. Five gleaming crows search and peck between the rows. They make a low, companionable squawk, and like midwives and undertakers possess a weird authority.Crickets leap from the stubble, parting before me like the Red Sea. The garden sprawls and spoils.
Across the lake the campers have learned to water ski. They have, or they haven’t. Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”
Cloud shadows rush over drying hay, fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine. The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod brighten the margins of the woods.
Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts; water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.
—Jane Kenyon
from Three Songs at the End of Summer
Elizabeth