On the Occasion of Dick Hill's Death
       

       The dog and I took the meadowed way,
       one that once led to all arbors and streams
       and crushed twig paths - 
       no blacktop cuts and divides,
       no rubber collars to hold back
       the sliding river banks.

       Even so,
       in the late winter muck
       on this early spring day,
       we found the imprint of a hoof -
       a single impression -
       left by a deer.

       It has been years
       since either of us 
       has seen such a creature here.
       Yet clearly, there, 
       at the crook of the path,
       a cloven cup of trembling water - 
       the mark of the deer
       and his passing.
 
       * * *
  
       When he was young
       Dick kept a painted horse.
       Time upon time 
       that horse sauntered into his recollection,
       and from there,
       our conversation.

       Gone now that dappled creature.

       And yet, see here
       how it moves
       from his words to mine,
       ambling untroubled by fences that divide
       what was,
       from what is,
       and will be,
       forever.
       

       Next
       Contents
       Home page