In the quiet afternoon, my thoughts return to those springs past Those wonderful nights of sudden delight

How much grief has filled Those vessels since! All those words are now a blur

On the fascimile of time The ladder one climbs year after year Into this time called the present

In which the afternoon sun Falls on this regret, that regret, so much regret. Still beauty as it stands in one's heart

Remains untranished A trout leaping from a spring The glide of geese - point to hope Hope in the heart, in the mind And in the pen I hold!