It was a time when I was good to all
the world, a time when all the world still called
me good. The smoke from Ide’s kitchen mounts
in my memory, the farmyard is
frosted over, the air, crystal, the river
embroidered with ice. I can still smell burnt
straw and dunghills and see the flurry of birds
gusting from F.’s hedges —
see in the near dark the chapel haloed
in pink, the fields flat, beaten steel, shining —
the sickle moon, hoisted on the horizon,
blue mountains, their crests smudged
with crimson, the shades of sunset unstaunched,
as the light dims the glow from small yellow
lamps deepening, in my mind these images
emerge in montage.
Everything found its sense, its eloquence
in the rose, in the blush of N.’s cheeks. N.,
head on my shoulder, N. shy, modest, still
smelling of milk, N. revering
my every word … and so, in spite of
the bombings, in spite of the war it was
the fullest time in my life, it persists,
the life within my life.
