ROSANNA WARREN

Noon


High summer. Plenitude. The granite knoll
thrusts through gray soil at the hill crest. Drought:
spring is fulfilled. I crouch on the warm skull
of New Hampshire. Spikes of parched grass jut
through the anthill at my feet, and the whole field
grates with small oracles the cicadas
scrape between thigh and wing. What do I hold
at bay? The idea of harvest, days that ooze . . .
From the valley rises the Interstate's purr,
the whine of outboards from the lake, a child's voice
quarreling. Someone's hammer raps the air,
duet with its own knocked echo. Here is the precise
dead heart of the living day, the hollow core, the pit
around which light thickens, and we eat.