ON THE LAWN, 1914

Their meals were huge. They lie
bemused, like fishes in a tank,
and all the century is theirs.

The flowers are tamed, the grass
cut close beneath them; and sunstroke
is the fever and the only cure

is love. Now time is stilled, no
shadows touch their bodies, and here
they'll talk, read books, and flirt

with cousins until their names
at last are called. The lawn
slopes softly to a moving stream.

Through sixty years the sunlight cools,
the lines must blur. What drives
the backward glance is not my losses

but their own belief: who rise,
...