Auden wrote of
September 1939
in a bar on 52nd street.
A premonition of the catastrophe
That followed.
Where are we?
The trout lurk in the shadows of the
Battenkill.
Are they afraid
or just avoiding me?
We fear death by a thousand cuts.
And yet this late August day in upstate New York
with its mellow afternoon light and gentle breeze
calms the spirit as friends gather.
The pine tree in the yard
stands majestic and vulnerable.
August, 2019
poems for friends 
Love this one Harry. Very poignant.
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Thanks Jim. This one is close to my heart.
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Harry, this poem reminds me of one by Robert Penn Warren, with whom I think you have a few things in common:
Dragon-Tree
The faucet drips all night, the plumber forgot it.
A cat, in coitu, squalls like Hell’s honeymoon.
A child is sick. The Doctor coughs.
Do you feel, in your heart, that life has turned out as once you expected?
Spring comes early, ice
Groans in the gorge. Water, black, swirls
Into foam like lace white in fury. The gorge boulders boom.
When you hear, in darkness, the gorge boulders boom, does your heart say, “No comment”?
Geese pass in dawn-light, and the news
From Asia is bad, and the Belgians sure mucked up
The Congo. Human flesh is eaten there, often uncooked.
Have you sat on a hillside at sunset and eaten the flesh of your own heart?
The world drives at you like a locomotive
In an archaic movie. It whirls off the screen.
It is on you, the iron. You hear, in that silence, your heart.
Have you thought that the headlines are only the image of your own heart?
Some study compassion. Some confusing
Personal pathology with the logic of history, jump
Out of windows. Some walk with God, some by rivers, at twilight.
Have you tried to just sit with the children and tell a tale ending in laughter?
Oh, tell the tale, and laugh, and let
God laugh–for your heart is the dragon-tree, the root
Feels, in earth-dark, the abrasive scale, the coils
Twitch. But look! the new leaf flaps gilt in the sunlight. Birds sing.
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Beautiful poem. Thanks Lou.
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