A Roadside Near Ithaca

Here we picked wild strawberries,

though in my memory we're neither here

nor missing. Or I'd scuff out

by myself at dusk, proud

to be lonely. Now everything's

in bloom along the road at once:

tansy mustard, sow thistle,

fescue, burdock, soapwort,

the mailbox-high day lilies,

splurges of chicory with thin,

ragged, sky-blue flowers.

Or they're one blue the sky

can be, and always, not

varium et mutabile semper,

restless forever. In memory,

though memory eats its banks

like any river, you can carry

by constant revision

some loved thing: a stalk of mullein

shaped like a what's-the-word-for

a tower of terraced bells, that's it,

a carillon! A carillon ringing

its mute changes of pollen into a past

we must be about to enter,

the road's so stained by the yellow

light (same yellow as the tiny

mullein flowers) we shared

when we were imminent.