Clapp’s Pond

Three miles through the woods
Clapp’s Pond sprawls stone gray
Among oaks and pines,
The late winter fields

Where a pheasant blazes up
Lifting his yellow legs
Under bronze feathers, opening
Bronze wings;

And one doe, dimpling the ground as she touches
Its dampness sharply, flares
Out of the brush and gallops away.

*

By evening: rain.
It pours down from the black clouds,
Lashes over the roof. The last
Acorns spray over the porch; I toss
One, then two more
Logs on the fire.

*

How sometimes everything
Closes up, a painted fan, landscapes and moments
Flowing together until the sense of distance – – –
Say, between Clapp’s Pond and me – – –
Vanishes, edges slide together
Like the feathers of a wing, everything
Touches everything.

*

Later, lying half-asleep under
The blankets, I watch
While the doe, glittering with rain, steps
Under the wet slabs of the pines, stretches
Her long neck down to drink

*

From the pond
Three miles away.