A clear morning, the air is

cool. Lightly you cross

the meadow. And there

on the Oka, a barge

slowly draws by.

Unwilled, a word is

speaking itself, over and over, and

others follow. A bell can be heard

somewhere, faintly

rung in a field.

A wheat field? A field of hay?

Are they going to be threshing?

My eyes looked away

for an instant, straight into

someone’s fate,

between pine trees the deep

rifts of blue, the voices

across the noise and the heaps of

chaff and grain … And autumn

smiles at our springtime.

Life has thrown open its coat

and yet—

oh golden days, how remote,

how remote they are. Lord,

oh God, how far-off.