The Searchers

From Conner's Ridge high above the foggy bottom. From the lightning-struck house where, day after day, the wind Sailed slates off into the yard and the sun, Sinking, seemed to touch the chimney, and the moon, Ascending, tangled in the pear tree, that good old man Has gone away. Blue-eyes squinting, he whistled Reels as he hoed the corn in the highfield, or, picking Summer Transparents, crisp and green, he poured Them into baskets. Everything spoke to him. The horses, knee-deep in Black-eyed Susans, wickered. The wheat whispered its growing into his ears. Timothy tapped his knees in time to his step And birdwings brushed his yellow, wide-brimmed hat. When I was ten he died by his own hand.