This old man had lavender skin, a handkerchief
Toppling from his breastpocket like an iris.
We on the riverbank watched the gracing rowers
Leaving the shore and watched him watch them leave,
And Charles said: I wonder if they mean to him
As much as I can imagine they mean to him.
Charles was like that. But as evening became
A purple element we stayed there wondering
About the old man–talking of other things,
For although the old man, by the time we all went home,
Had moved away he stayed there wandering
Like a river-flower, thinking of rivery things
(We supposed) well into the twilight. We would never
Know, this we knew, how much it had meant to him,
Oars, violet water, laughter on the stream.
Though we knew, Charles said, just how much he meant to
the river.
For he moved away, leaving us there on the grass,
But the river did not vanish, or not then at least.
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