WATERED COLORS: VINCENT BEACH, OCTOBER
(For David Levine)
Paint me a slanting cliff
that shrinks to stillness,
a line echoing
day’s fall.
July’s impastos will not do
here ---
tropical, rich as mangoes,
clear heat at zenith in that
sun.
It is a time of endings,
divorce, soft
silverpoint regrets
and watered colors,
these last hours
of the last light
of a summer’s communion.
Wrapped in a dusk of moths
nesting
we sit, hushed as altarboys,
watching two stragglers
trudge finally home their
kites.
The year swivels towards ice
while gulls the hue of
mourning
streak the sky.
Versions first published in Wisconsin Review (1980), Martha's Vineyard Magazine (2001)