The leaves are turning, one by one carried away in the crisp wind.
In one letter he penned
Coleridge turned away, calling love
a local anguish he meant to leave
behind him. Away, away,
says the blue and gold day, and no one hears it but the wind, whose law
it echoes. The dog has a red ball to chase.
You pick a flat, perfect stone for the wall you hope to live long enough
to rebuild. I prune
briars, pick burrs from the dog’s fur.
I teach come and sit. Sit here—
a longer sit beneath the cedars. The grass is freshly cut,
sun low, all the energy
of a summer day rushing into bulb and root.
The dog runs off, returns. The stones balance
steeply. Good work. Good dog. This is
heaven. Sit. Stay.
Heaven
Margaret Gibson Click to read more...
Margaret Gibson is the author of a memoir, The Prodigal Daughter (University of Missouri Press, 2008) and eleven books of poems, all from LSU press, most recently One Body (2007), Second Nature (2010) and Broken Cup (2014). She lives in Preston, CT. and is Professor Emerita, University of Connecticut. For more information visit www.MargaretGibsonPoetry.com and https://wwwlfacebook.com/MargaretGibsonPoetry.
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