like one of those Mercuries of the sixties
my hand
calm, blue veined,
jacket tweed
in the American grain.
God gives us hours beyond counting:
Darkening pendulum swings,
fulfillment always a stone’s throw beyond.
Sky that weedy tobacco
of clouds pulled apart:
an occasional slice of apple
stored
like faith, buried: in a Sobranie, Black Russian. Now canonized comes Saint Evening.