No magnolias, no cicadas—
nothing but an ordinary evening in Connecticut
when we suddenly recall
the lawns of our imaginary childhood
sweeping down to the nameless river. . . .

These are our voices giving voice
to memories of what we might have wanted to have been—
luxurious houses with great porches
in the hills, places we might have seen
on late summer drives into the country
where anything could happen,
long before we could imagine
wives to live there with us.

* * *

Perhaps this house was built by angels
who had the grace or the presence
of mind or simply the Presence
to go where I once stood, listening to thunder
that echoed to no visible lightning.

Had they been listening? Or singing?

I read in a book of legends
how Ceres goes over the barren fields
at sunrise, sowing grain.

* * *

And who are the makers of sunrise?
Approaching middle age, more wary,
maybe more deserving if less believing,
we go on believing if we keep on looking
we will surely see the best of what’s been made—
as a blind man, listening for the falling leaves of autumn,
considers it a miracle when he discovers,
as if for the first time,
the last recording of some famed contralto.