At forty, a man's body
knows the secret inside

that death is coming
and others will play

sweet, lingering games
in the shade of the oaks.

Others will repeat the form
of the dance when his feet

are no more, flesh and blood
and bones to dust decomposed.

Everything is loss. So plays
the music of this first day

of May, mocking presence
with certainty of coming

absence, as if each white bell
ranged along the green rope stem

of each slight lily of the valley
were become huge, metal, all tolling

together an immense requiem,
one he hears and will not hear.

The lilies of the valley
are the ones right there

under the pin oak that is just
now leafing oblivious out.

1986