The Pond

We lie by the pond on a late August afternoon

as a breeze from low hills in the west stiffens water

and agitates birch leaves yellowing above us.

You set down your book and lift your eyes to white trunks tilting from shore.

A mink scuds through ferns; an acorn tumbles.

Soon we will turn to our daily business.

You do not know that I am watching, taking pleasure

in your breasts that rise and fall as you breathe.

Then I see mourners gathered by an open grave.

The Day

Last night at suppertime I outlived my father, enduring

the year, month, day, hour and moment

when he lay back on a hospital bed in the guest room

among cylinders of oxygen – mouth open, nostrils and pale

blue lips fixed unquivering. Father of my name,

father of long fingers, I remember your dark hair

and your face almost unwrinkled. Now I have waked

more mornings to frost whitening the grass,

read the newspaper more times, and stood more times,

my hand on a doorknob without opening the door.

The Cup

From the Studebaker’s backseat, on our Sunday drives,

I watched her earrings sway. Then I walked uphill

beside an old man carrying buckets

under birches on an August day. Striding at noontime,

I looked at wheat and at river cities. In the crib

my daughter sighed opening her eyes. I kissed the cheek

of my father dying. By the pond an acorn fell.

You listening here, you reading these words as I write them,

I offer this cup to you: Though we drink

from this cup every day, we will never drink it dry.