Love.

Chardin, A Mallard Duck Hanging on a Wall with a Seville Orange, 1730

AUTUMN

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes

 The casement all the day

And from the mossy elm tree takes

 The faded leaf away

Twirling it by the window-pane

With thousand others down the lane

I love to see the shaking twig

 Dance till the shut of eve

The sparrow on the cottage rig

 Whose chirp would make believe

That spring was just now flirting by

In summers lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage smoke

 Curl upwards through the naked trees

The pigeons nestled round the coat

 On dull November days like these

The cock upon the dung-hill crowing

The mill sails on the heath a-going

The feather from the ravens breast

 Falls on the stubble lea

The acorns near the old crows nest

 Fall pattering down the tree

The grunting pigs that wait for all

Scramble and hurry where they fall

John Clare

Waits.

For my ol' buddy, Molson ...

CONSOLATION

Though he, that ever kind and true,

Kept stoutly step by step with you,

Your whole long, gusty lifetime through,

Be gone a while before,

Be now a moment gone before,

Yet, doubt not, soon the seasons shall restore

Your friend to you.

He has but turned the corner — still

He pushes on with right good will,

Through mire and marsh, by heugh and hill,

That self-same arduous way —

That self-same upland, hopeful way,

That you and he through many a doubtful day

Attempted still.

He is not dead, this friend — not dead,

But in the path we mortals tread

Got some few, trifling steps ahead

And nearer to the end;

So that you too, once past the bend,

Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend

You fancy dead.

Push gaily on, strong heart! The while

You travel forward mile by mile,

He loiters with a backward smile

Till you can overtake,

And strains his eyes to search his wake,

Or whistling, as he sees you through the brake,

Waits on a stile.

Robert Louis Stevenson

From.

ANCESTORS

I’ve come here from the rocks, the bonelike chert,

            obsidian, lava rock. I’ve come here from the trees—

chestnut, bay laurel, toyon, acacia, redwood, cedar,

one thousand oaks

            that bend with moss and old man’s beard.

I was born on a green couch on Carriger Road between

            the vineyards and the horse pasture.

I don’t remember what I first saw, the brick of light

            that unhinged me from the beginning. I don’t remember

my brother’s face, my mother, my father.

            Later, I remember leaves, through car windows,

through bedroom windows, through the classroom window,

the way they shaded and patterned the ground, all that

            power from roots. Imagine you must survive

without running? I’ve come from the lacing patterns of leaves,

            I do not know where else I belong.

Ada Limón