Country Life
.
.
Sowing a row of early wonder
beets, let's say, or a border
of nasturtiums, you stop
to wonder where you're traveling
by knee.
Into the August tool-shed musk
into a fermenting apple.
There goes the plow sealing
with a new two-foot snowbank
the driveway you cleared all morning.
There go the geese back to the lake
after their dusk feeding
on corn stubble:
it must be March:
next they'll go north to nest.
And if you lie flat and silent
you can hear the suburbs coming
on their elbows.
The stones dance in place.
On one of them a mole is knocking
but it won't come out, this
is its day for dancing.
.
by William Matthews
from Sleek for the Long Flight
White Pine Press, 1988