Sometimes we don't say anything. Sometimes we sit on the deck and stare at the masses of goldenrod where the garden used to be and watch the color change from day to day, the high yellow turning to mustard and at last to tarnish. Starlings flitter in the branches of the dead hornbeam by the fence. And are these therefore the procedures of defeat? Why am I saying all this to you anyway since you already know it? But of course we always tell each other what we already know. What else? It's the way love is in a late stage of the world. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org |