And the Time Is: Poems, 1958-2013

Putting Away the Lost Summer

101 Putting Away the Lost Summer The swing’s unslung and winter-waxed, the mint leaves waiting to be sieved to salt, the hose unscrewed and coiled like a rattler in the shed. As usual the ripening figs will blacken at first frost exactly as they did last year when all the talk was war. This year the human harvest makes the war seem dim: one suicide, three deaths, one shock, one disappointment, and a swindle. Each one bequeathed its epitaph: “Your letter was a narrow bridge to the rest of my life.” “He didn’t recognize me, Sam—his own sister.” “I’ll stay until he’s well or else not here anymore.” Remembering, I see how much can never be the way it was, despite appearances. Philosophy’s no help. Religion’s even less. And poetry does nothing but re-live what’s lost without redeeming it like life’s predictable revision of itself. What’s left but learning to survive with wounds? Or studying the fate of figs 102 before the unexpected chill, not knowing in advance how many or how few will be destroyed or toughened when it comes . . . Playing for time, I occupy myself with chores and tools, uncertain if the lot I’ve chosen is a gambler’s or a coward’s or a fool’s. ...