The pump is still!
Its waters cease to run.
The door, it does not bang,
no hand upon it any more.
No step upon the walk, the porch, the floor.
No figure of a man, no voice; no call.
Five years since Mother died,
And now he too, has gone!
The two of them, my home, my mom and dad!
At this far point I am alone!
The years, they played a trick.
They told me not.
How devastating are these days.
I did not know, nor know I yet,
for these hours speak not a clear word of truth,
but only clouds of fog and grief,
and days, they race head long.
The farm, the house, the lawn,
they hold a thousand secrets of the past,
For Dad and Mom, for me.
(September 1966, on the occasion of Harold’s father’s death)