Complete Poems

The day they had to go

Was brilliant after rain. Persimmons glowed

In the garden behind the castle.

Upon its wall lizards immutably basked

Like vitrified remains

Of an archaic, molten summer. Bronze

Cherubs shook down the chestnuts

From trees over a jetty, where fishing nets

Were sunshine hung out in skeins

To dry, and the fishing boats in their little harbour

Lay breathing asleep. Far

And free, the sun was writing, rewriting ceaselessly

Hieroglyphs on the lake –

Copying a million, million times one sacred

Vanishing word, peace.

The globed hours bloomed. It was grape-harvest season,

And time to go. They turned and hurried away

With never a look behind,

As if they were sure perfection could only stay

Perfect now in the mind,

And a backward glance would tarnish or quite devalue

That innocent, golden scene.

Though their hearts shrank, as if not till now they knew

It was paradise where they had been,

They broke from the circle of bliss, the sunlit haven.

Was it for guilt they fled?

From enchantment? Or was it simply that they were driven

By the migrant’s punctual need?

All these, but more – the demand felicity makes

For release from its own charmed sphere,

To be carried into the world of flaws and heartaches,

Reborn, though mortally, there.

So, then, they went, cherishing their brief vision.

One watcher smiled to see

Them go, and sheathed a flaming sword, his mission

A pure formality.