It straddles the brook,
Holding its builder’s poem:
“On Doing Nothing;”
Four chairs, three empty—
Which is most alone? The hike
Yesterday is here,
Mud tracked from the Swag—
Such nonsense, this pretending
With screens on all sides!
But how many stones
Have you gotten to know? See,
Daddy longlegs gropes;
Carved from hemlock stump,
A cracking man considers
The bird of his hand;
I prefer my hosts’
Wine, the limbs sore from dancing
Past midnight; lean in,
Rhododendron, hear?
Women’s laughter up the hill—
Third day together . . .
for Helen & Peter Wallace
Cataloochee Ranch, NC