Quiet

[rejectomorph]

The air has remained all but unstirred tonight. I find that I miss the stimulation the wind brought to my mind. Now I sink back into dullness. It even smells bland outside. No beasts have visited the street, no night birds have broken the near-silence with their calls. There have been only the buzzing insects and the occasional vagrant breeze. I'd like to smell a skunk out there, or hear a dog barking at a passing raccoon. But nothing. I guess I'll go to sleep. Might as well, can't dance.



Sunday Verse

FALL

by Robert Francis


Leave the bars lying in the grass.
Let all wanderers freely pass
Into the pasture now.

Gone are the fawn-shy heifers, gone
The little calf almost a fawn,
And the black two-year cow.

Leave the bars lying where they are.
Let each black-triangled birch bar
Be white and triple warning:

One for all tender things that go,
One for the near and ultimate snow,
One for frost by morning.

In that first snow a frightened deer,
Swifter than snowfall, swift as fear,
May pass here flying, flying.

What if no fence could foil his speed?
Spare him the leap, spare him one need
Of leaping. Leave the bars lying.