Respite
After dry loss, at last
it arrives, returns:
it plinks solemnly
in the turned bell
of a bucket, fills all
the vases on the table,
hisses then drums
across a tin roof,
unfurls in white bloom
over the road's tar,
strokes the parched
weeds that line
the fencerow,
scoots off through
a ditch swampward,
puddles in the lace
of roots and stumps,
first keeps the deepest
secret of the woods,
then becomes the secret
thrilling earth,
and now a shroud
for a woman who spins
like a kite in the wind
before kneeling,
as if this respite were all
the tenderness
and every mercy
she ever prayed for.