13

Yesterday the trees were passionate
an indiscriminate planet piling on sweet
plenitudes of leaves in the harvest light,     while
august     the firmament     planted a blue & final kiss

Yesterday's kings trundled forth from castles
bumblebees were     drunken sailors in the grass
& like honeyed wax     bearing his father's seal
Hamlet wheeled around toward Elsinore.

Today soft rain flattens the brown plane leaves
Earthfilled mouths mutter to life once more
In the All Souls' light     living & dead     alas
are spun together     just above their graves

& Hamlet     yes     comes home, & it is no dream
Ophelia is singing in the stream.



Henry Gould | Island Road 14
Contents | Mudlark No. 6