Summer Garden

~~ & thus you entered
 
a forest of solitudes
 
where in this great
 
sense your life had
 
been pursued, till like
 
a shadow breaking off
 
a rising body, a
 
need hovered & grew.
 
Some lined feature of
 
another fate strives to
 
be met, sits low
 
& upright. Those qualities
 
which had been energy
 
or grace past pain
 
wove from the nerves
 
a nest or instinct.
 
Your calms are interesting.
 
Write to us during
 
this terrible government. A
 
universe coughs blue &
 
draws a twiceness from
 
the mitred now, while
 
your garden hand spells
 
the inexhaustible forms~~
 
 

 
 
FOR  ELIZABETH   ROBINSON

Copyright Credit: Brenda Hillman, “Summer Garden” from Pieces of Air in the Epic. Copyright © 2005 by Brenda Hillman. Reprinted by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Source: Pieces of Air in the Epic (Wesleyan University Press, 2005)