Not Hearing the Wood Thrush, “Passage”
Once in sunlight I pinned to the clothesline a cotton sheet, a plane of light
sheer as the mind of God,
before we imagined that mind creased by a single word.
With my hand I smoothed any rivel, any shirr, any suggestion of pleat or furrow.
Whatever it was I wanted from that moment, I can’t say. It failed to edify.
Nor did I bow.
And yet the memory holds, and there is a joy that recurs in me much as the scent
of summer abides in air dried sheets I unfold long after,
lying down in them as one might in a meadow,
as one might with a lover, as one might court the Infinite, however long it takes.