The Other Wind

Last Days:

You roar over the meadow and roar.
Silence purrs in the grass. In what
a hungry bum told you was larch, a parked hawk
keeps quiet. Silence. You roar again.
You remember the bum begged food and you
turned him away. You turned girls who loved you
away. One wept and said 'cold' in July.
And so on. You roar each morning. Mute hawk
in the larch, bum on the road, girls
going away. Some mornings, words. You roar words
over the meadow. 'Clambake' and 'fracas'.
The song of the creek dries up. Beavers
head for the sky. And so on. Hawk on larch.
Bum on road. Girls gone. Creek dry. Beavers
in flight. You roar editorials into the sun.
And so on. The silent, the indifferent sun. 

Richard Hugo.