Then it sank in the night, one piece, taking winter with it. And afterward everything seems simple and good. All afternoon I lifted oak leaves from the flowerbeds, and greeted like friends the green-white crowns of perennials. They have the tender, unnerving beauty of a baby's head. I've left the windows open to hear the peepers' wildly disproportionate cries.
Dinner is over, no one stirs.
The dog sighs, sneezes, and closes his eyes. Other Selections Selected poems of Jane Kenyon. Selected poems of Donald Hall. Drafts of Donald Hall's Ox-Cart Man. A Celebration of Her Life and Work, October 26, 1995.