The sky is torn across
This ragged anniversary of two
Who moved for three years in tune
Down the long walks of their vows.

Now their love lies a loss
And Love and his patients roar on a chain;
From every tune or crater
Carrying cloud, Death strikes their house.

Too late in the wrong rain
They come together whom their love parted:
The windows pour into their heart
And the doors burn in their brain.

Anniversary of the Loss of H.M.S. Tweed




Oh, what relief to gaze on yonder sky,
Where all is holy, calm, and purely bright!
Within, the sound of mirth and revelry
Startles the timid ear of sober night.


And eyes are bright and silver voices thrill,
As the harp echoes through the glittering hall;
The jest is there that wakes the laugh at will,
And mirth has cast her fairy spell o'er all.


I turn, fair spirit of light! where peaceful thou
Art shining in unatler'd majesty;

This early morn I woke befuddled; .
Came downstairs to write
These thoughts that in my mind were muddled
Through the stormy night.
It's been two weeks since I've come home
From hernia repair,
To spend so many healing hours
In this reclining chair.

As I recline and think of how
In 'gifting' we have scored,
To mark this anniversary,
We both went overboard.
There's no use beating 'round the bush.
I'll tell it to you straight.
The two of us spent much too much
On this, our twenty eighth.

Reclining chair and oven,

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.
Ovid, Fastorum, Lib. vi.
"O Cæsar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.
O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine,
That once were mine and are no longer mine,--
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,--
Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose

At the time when the stars are grey,
And the gold of the molten moon
Fades, and the twilight is thinned,
And the sun leaps up, and the wind,
A light rose, not of the day,
A stronger light than of noon.

As the light of a face much loved
Was the face of the light that clomb;
As a mother's whitened with woes
Her adorable head that arose;
As the sound of a God that is moved,
Her voice went forth upon Rome.

At her lips it fluttered and failed
Twice, and sobbed into song,
And sank as a flame sinks under;

May you find help from action figures I keep.
May you find them in the top drawer
And bring them out while you sleep
And I welcome darkness--
The flickering TV, helicopters
hopscotched overhead.

May these nightdolls help you,
When every questionnaire questions you,
When diagonal smoke
Mafficks treetops.
Use this antidote liberally.
May your walk to the F train be not alone.

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

At midnight, when the moonlit cypress trees
Have woven round his grave a magic shade,
Still weeping the unfinished hymn he made,
There moves fresh Maia, like a morning breeze
Blown over jonquil beds when warm rains cease.
And stooping where her poet's head is laid,
Selene weeps, while all the tides are stayed,
And swaying seas are darkened into peace.
But they who wake the meadows and the tides
Have hearts too kind to bid him wake from sleep,
Who murmurs sometimes when his dreams are deep,
Startling the Quiet Land where he abides,

Like the vain curlings of the watery maze,
Which in smooth streams a sinking weight does raise,
So Man, declining always, disappears
In the weak circles of increasing years;
And his short tumults of themselves compose,
While flowing Time above his head does close.

Cromwell alone with greater vigour runs,
(Sun-like) the stages of succeeding suns:
And still the day which he doth next restore,
Is the just wonder of the day before.
Cromwell alone doth with new lustre spring,
And shines the jewel of the yearly ring.

Another year has passed, my love,
And now it's twenty five:
The total years our marriage has
Been true, and been alive.

We've moved a dozen times in all,
And shared good times with bad.
We've traveled many thousand miles.
Adventures, we have had.

Nine children have been born to us,
And one grandchild, as well.
We're in McLean three years by now.
It seems like quite a spell.

My job has separated us
Each year from time to time.
Let's hope New York will be the last
Occasion for such rhyme.