All that cold, rainy
Spring the green deepened as it
Became absorbed in
Itself, quite inattentive
To the busy details and

Relations among
Them that we have come to call
“What was going on.”
Outside there, under all the
Wide, pervasive gray of sky

(Which itself did not
Interfere with very much),
The garden had so
Intensified beyond mere
Coloration that it had

Become a substance
On which our starved eyes could graze
With remembrance, hope
And slow pleasure entangled.
That was the good news. But all

That June we were plagued
With returning rain’s dropouts
Who keep on dropping
In. Uninvited, of course
But, we must admit, somehow

Contracted for; they
Pound away at roofs and eaves
To be more strongly
Acknowledged and admitted
(In the most loud, literal

Sense) though being let
In by being admitted
To in a far more
Figurative way—well that’s
About all they’d be getting.

We’d hope to avoid
The mindless patter
That these visitors
Exchange not with each other
But only direct at us.

Yet we live right on
The only route from Great There
To the favored Heres;
They all stop by on their way
Down, outwearing their welcome

After a moment—
then we are not just putting
up with them all, but
Putting them up, presently
Paying for the green repast

We felt we’d paid for
In advance with the broad gray,
With the yellow light
We’d given up, with the soft
Sound of sunlight on the grass.