It Comes to This

The cricket cries less strident in the night;
dew smothering the umber field;
mist in the hills, mist rising from the streams; the flight
of disappearing geese; the final yield
of eggplants, squash, tough broccoli;
a sigh diminished and diminishing
with no more ripeness left to hope for; not for me
new hope for newer hope; I bring
to bear only what I have left behind.
And I know nothing that can make
this brooding quietude give bloom to being there,
in that depleted light, my mind,
if not hunched hemlocks shadowed in the lake
or one blue dragonfly suspended in the air.

(c) Robert Pack, 1993