Poetry by William F. Buford

Along the evening fence row

If I could wait to come here with you in this last frozen light
which is in the early evening when it slips down nearly out of living
before the night wastes it away, eager to make itself gone
to bring the day down

then could I kiss you to wake you to walk along our fence-row again
in our old single double file to whisper words more muted than before
more muted than love is,
to move together under the touch of this old branch
to stretch out to lie beneath it again low in our tunneled grassworks
the way we let our love lift the shades of color into everlasting bloom.

On the other side the river how it catches this last leaving of the light
it is our love going, it is the evening air
that once had hours for us, but lives no longer

it is our double line of evening old sweet light that comes now
soft as moving water does, that moves these leaves and waiting grass
the way cool air does

the way we trusted once to send our souls aloft
to keep alive the hope that once here was.