Accounted For

From the Undergrowth

42 From the Undergrowth —after Akhmatova New roses flush in the serein as a black cat stretches just short of the heavy rake with its uncertain lean—Good luck like the glimpse of a jewel in the sand, for anything about to happen, but not tied to a load of bricks, a wall of questions requiring of her a vision. She thinks reserve brings the cries of love nearer-to-hand, rooted. Whose voice beside the cricket’s in the lavish growth of wild ivy and sunset makes her drowsy, lucid with faith again? Whose virtue made sooth inside her? Credence sinks for the night ahead. A slivered moon spools waves with the wind. The subtlest pearl, hers alone. ...