Goodbye, April

[Allen sends poetry these days...]

April

If you had come away with me
into another state
we had been quiet together.
But there the sun coming up
out of the nothing beyond
the lake was too low in the sky,
there was too great a pushing against him,
too much of sumac buds,
pink in the head
with the clear gum upon them,
too many opening hearts of lilac leaves,
too many, too many swollen limp poplar tassels on the
bare branches!
It was too strong in the air.
I had no rest against that springtime!
The pounding of the hoofs on the raw sods
stayed with me half through the night.
I awoke smiling but tired.

--William Carlos Williams

[I may sleep thru May.]

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