Day of Grief
I was forcing a wasp to the top of a window where there was some sky and there were tiger lilies outside just to love him or maybe only simply a kiss for he was hurrying home to fight a broom and I was trying to open a door with one hand while the other was swinging tomatoes, and you could even smell the corn for corn travels by wind and there was the first hint of cold and dark though it was nothing compared to what would come, and someone should mark the day, I think it was August 20th, and that should be the day of grief for grief begins then and the corn man starts to shiver and crows too and dogs who hate the wind though grief would come later and it was a relief to know I wasn't alone, but be as it may, since it was cold and dark I found myself singing the brilliant love songs of my other religion.
Copyright © 2012 by Gerald Stern. Used with permission of the author.