And what if after so many words

                        the word itself doesn’t survive.

                          Cesar Vallejo, “And What If After”

This is how it was then, at dawn perhaps

Or dusk, the two palomino stallions quiet

In the pasture, or it is spring and the stream

Flood rushing, its sound staying in the stones,

Or autumn and the soft falling of the orchard

Bitter windfalls after hard sleet and the last

Bruised blackberries dusted with first frost.

No words mattered then, no one to tell them to,

And now here these years later how the shape

Of this blacksnake slipping silently through

Tall summer parched grass saying more than

Any words of mine, now or then, of leaving.