In the environs of the funeral home 
The smell of death was absent. All I knew 
Were flowers rioting and odors blown 

Walking a long time in the fields of the dead
I stopped where the grass
flared thickly, and leaned on a stone

Yesterday rain fell in torrents, 
stripping the branches of leaves and 
deepening the arroyo. Now, 

   With no less joy than grief and consternation
that You, not they, were the victim doomed to die,
the chosen souls saw great gates in the sky

A sort of cypress reached
Halfway up the longer window;
I came to live here, all the same.

Since last September I’ve been trying to describe
Two moonstone hills,
And an ochre mountain, by candle light, behind.

Your camping lantern shone among
the cottonwoods. It was then
I should have come. Watching—

With you I want to say,
humble feet of antelopes,
what I cannot have in mind

Professor Palamedes darts down Westow Street.
Nothing explains how he avoids
Colliding with mutton, plastics, pianos.

While the rain comes pouring down,
Chekhov, in his white peaked hunting cap,
And prone beside a rick of hay, surveys