ONE MINUTE BEFORE NOON
One minute before noon.
Two cows are galloping in Normandy.
God dozes. Humble flowers powder the grass.
A caterpillar millimetres on a stone.
The road, fondling a tractor in its lap,
Slips under a hill. A rooster soloes.
A wall loses a sliver. Nothing dies.
Noon noon, ding the churchbells, noon noon.
God’s awake!
A wasp and I exchange an ugly look.
[In its first printed version, I marked this poem “Cerisy-la-Salle, July 27, 1978”. It was begotten by the sight, new for a city-dweller like myself, of two fully grown cows dashing across the meadow that stretches far off from the manor.]