Happy Valley

The brook is this mix of roar & hiss as if God

has managed to scalpel a section of tempest & clothespin it in

the woods Over There Always draped in the trees

while we eat white summer peaches from celadon bowls

while the sun bleaches & blue jay squawks score the maple, oak

birch and apple-treed sky with their oblique Scriabin musics.

Fifteen years since I have seen a real Fall

her deciduous burlesque, her glistering things sifting

on the old cider mill. A holy show.

I hold a wooden fragrance & a sodden mush of crushed

flowing apples in a cache and will never give it up.

The cardinal is the best bird because it is a red mark

on the blank snow amid the charcoal Twombly of maple, oak

birch and apple branches. Pines are green & faraway, don’t figure.

My sister in spring is even prettier, her smile

the genuine quality of it undiminished in the many months

since I have been in Happy Valley. It roars and is constantly

in spate because it has its reasons spring being spring plus my visiting.