An Hour Ago

I looked in the empty window

Where your easel stood in shadow

And the broom leaned in the corner

As I left it, after sweeping,

When we cleared away your paintings, and you packed them in the car.

I stood there in the twilight

And I felt the surge of darkness

As it flooded from the rafters

And came down to touch your door

In the softening of the moonlight, and the cooling of the day.

I remembered how the saddle

Hung along the whitewashed wall, and

The black outlines of your drawings,

And the blurred shapes gathering volume

As you worked there in the sunlight, with a book beside you hand.

I remembered how the thunder

Broke one day when we were talking

And we rose and watched sky blacken

In the courtyard, and the rain

Came and slanted down your window, and we lay and watched in slide.

I stood, and darkness thickened

As it drifted from the zenith,

And I felt the cold of night seep

Through the thinness of my shirt

As I turned away in silence, and the moon shone round and full.

I came in to this bare table

By my window, where the noise

Of late traffic from the freeway

Shook the balance of my mind,

And I felt your image tremble, and I moved to hold it still.