Returns, and: House on the Coast Road

Returns

Behind the plum tree, pushing its way througha screen of cultivated, flowering shrubs,a common briar I'd cut right down to nubshad sprouted out in spring, crisp-thorned and blue.

I went out picking berries here todayand slipped back to Septembers after school,scrambling about in hedges, chafed by rulesafter long days of summer and loose reins.

Then I was single-minded and intensein the stark innocence of concentration:gathering fruit, tonguing its sharp sensation.Now the harvest is mine in every sense.

I'll press these summer berries till they flowa dark, rich wine against the gathering snow.

House on the Coast Road

I look for the forsythia in the front garden,the arched porch where milk bottles were left,a low brick wall enclosing the pocket-sized lawn,and take in the bay window that opens on the sea.

If I'd never stood and watched the lighthouse beckoning,or, each evening, rounding the corner to the beach,hadn't paused on the threshold of a limitless, starred sky,perhaps I'd have been content to settle for less.