For Richie

Is all we learn how to forget

When mounties tweet and skies close in

-And suddenly any dove is flown

Up the sheerest bluff that guards

The bluster of the heart's domain?

For, Richie, we're the childish now.

Not you. Whole fields of hyacinths

Won't turn your gray spring weather gay-

Yet with one bloom of wintry fear

So meadow-safe seems the dullest brain

That-look!-already past the care

With which our twisted silence slowed,

Bumper to bumper, for passage round

One small curb exorbitant

With sadness in the dancing rain,

We race up hills and speed along

S-curves-rejoicing in our spines

As every thorny wrench retrieves

The rosy world where tires may chance

To skid on tears past any pain.

Chase us, Richie!-claim the joy

Children shunted to porches wail for:

For if we break our bones so featly,

The clouds pour laughter down- what else?-

On your death's innocent terrain.