Monday Poem

THE WHITE LILLIES

As a man and woman make
a garden between them like
a bed of stars, here
they linger in the summer evening
and the evening turns
cold with their terror; it
could all end, it is capable
of devastation.  All, all
can be lost, through scented air
the narrow columns
uselessly rising, and beyond,
a churning sea of poppies -

Hush, beloved.  It doesn't matter to me
how many summers I live to return:
this one summer we have entered eternity.
I felt your two hands
bury me to release its splendor.

-Louise Gluck