H. L. Davis

From “To the River Beach”

WHILE women were still talking near this dead friend,

I came out into a field where evergreen berry vines

Grew over an old fence, with rain on their leaves;

And would not have thought of her death, except for a few

Low sheltered berry leaves: I believed the rain

Could not reach them; but it rained on them every one.

So when we thought this friend safest and most kind,

Resetting young plants against winter, it was she

Must come to be a dead body. And to think

That she knew so much, and not that she would die!

Not that most simple thing—for her hands, or her eyes.

Dead. There were prints in the soft spaded ground

Which her knees made when she dug her tender plants.

Above the berry leaves the black garden and all the land

Steamed with rain like a winded horse, appeared strong.

And the rain-crow’s voice, which we took for a sign of rain,

Began like a little bell striking in the leaves.

So I sat in the rain listening to this bird’s voice,

And thought that our friend’s mouth now, its “Dead, I am dead,”

Was like the rain-crow sounding during the rain:

As if rain were a thing none of us had ever seen.