Could have gone
fishing or some other way
to waste time
& grow wiser perhaps.
All day
throwing the tall
coppery yarrow stalks
asking the book
whose reedy voices
surface & drift sometimes
swamped by the river’s
onrush: battles
without names any more
plots cries old wounds
picked clean & at nightfall
the scavenger people
in the mares’ hooves
has closed for the last time
its book of changes.
In pleasure the people
forget how hard is
pulling on ropes,
forget risk & dance
drunk through the cherry trees.
I shall encourage
the conversation of friends
& though restless
& staring across
this country of wars
& old poverty you
may be sure
I’m still listening.