"With Unbeclouded Eyes."

Milly Jourdain

On these September days of softer light,

When reddened leaves are dropping from the walls,

And in the distant sky are sounds of birds,

And all is wet with dew--

Then I perceive a little of that land,

That land which human voices sometimes fill

With sudden sound; or in the hush of spring,

Or on some summer morning's early peace,

I hear its distant murmur.

And although I strive so hard to hear and see,

All, all is gone like fragments of a dream

Leaving behind a trail of coloured mist

And dim forgetfulness.

A poem such as this one is a reason for wading through the swath of Milly Jourdain's mediocre efforts. Admittedly, stanza 2 is a letdown, but stanza 1's "Then I perceive a little of that land, / That land which human voices sometimes fill / With sudden sound" is beautiful. I love the delicate repetitions, the line break between"sometimes fill" and "With sudden sound," the odd yet bracing focus on "land" rather than its details.

Downstairs Tom is making waffles, musing with James about parallel parking, and playing Miles Davis on the stereo. Paul is asleep on the couch after a painful team loss at yesterday's basketball tournament, in which, to add even more suffering to the occasion, he fouled out in the 3rd quarter. It is hard to be heroic when you foul out of your last game of the season.

Me, I am feeling melancholy but striving not to be, though melancholy is a usual and perfectly acceptable February state of mind, and often a good foundation for slow writing, clumsy snowshoeing, and absent-minded creme Anglaise stirring.