Solace Refuses Its Name
It arrives not like a song,
but like the sudden stopping of a cart
wheel in deep mud.
Do not call it peace;
peace requires a house
with doors that latch.
This is merely the hour
when the wind drops low enough
for the chimney smoke to lie flat
against the grass.
You sit on the stone step.
Your knees do not hurt for three minutes.
The dog does not bark.
Then the latch rattles,
and the world returns to its iron.
.
