In appearance a drop of rain on a beloved face, a beetle immobilised on a leaf when a storm approaches. Something which can be enlivened, erased, reversed. Rather a stop with a green shadow than the end.
In fact the period which we attempt to tame at any price is a bone protruding from the sand, a snapping shut, a sign of a catastrophe. It is a punctuation mark of the elements. People should employ it modestly and with a proper consideration as when they act instead of fate.
Notes on this poem
Reproduced by permission of the Herbert Foundation and the Wylie Agency.
