Wilderness

First it was wilderness. Then it was cut down,
Tamed and settled. Now wilderness again.
Here and there, distant, a small town
But thickening forests between.

There they are now, in the heat of late afternoon,
Dense screens of green, with the creek and the pond between
Grumbling with bullfrogs, and three deer suddenly seen
On the edge of a meadow which almost becomes a lawn.

Beyond that clearing, rank upon rank of trees
Slip into solid blurs, as dense as night.
The heat unravels in the evening breeze
Gathering far shudders of smudged light.

So from the porch, the past moves under my eyes
Without a meaning, and without a cause,
And the mist from the tall hills and down in the valleys
Hovers over it all. So it is, and was.

Copyright © 2003 Anthony Thwaite All rights reserved
from A Move in the Weather
Enitharmon Press / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission