The Double Truth

After the Storm

63 After the Storm I will go to the bank by the wood . . . —Walt Whitman The sky was drawn with purple clouds. I headed barefoot down to the field in only a robe, untied. The mud oozed up between my toes until the path became a stream and I walked on coins the dead had spent. Fireflies sparked in the ferns this late in August, and an owl called out somewhere like a hole with a god inside. I was disappeared by the low, cool sweep of clouds and complex darkness. By the breath of animals inside the darkness. By the dwelling of darkness inside the darkness. I followed the trail by feel to the edge of the stream, where I could see across, just barely, to the uncut grass of the meadow. The bridge had held somehow in the surge that overran it, littered with sticks between the boards. I walked across to the garden, then listened for a bird to turn the light into a song that would wake the other birds to their desultory songs, until a chorus of birds was singing a dozen different songs that sounded as one in the overstory. I stood in a row of corn and heard a phoebe sing, and then a mocking bird. But where was yours, my love? The high, then low, sweet song to which I sing in return. The one deNiord text-2.indd 63 11/10/10 10:40 AM 64 whose lyrics decry this hour, calling for darkness instead of song, always more darkness and a little time. deNiord text-2.indd 64 11/10/10 10:40 AM ...