There is a way with color
    That can scream
Or soak into a soul,
    To move us like a scent
Of long forgotten mornings spent
    In listening to a sprinkler.
 
I sit on such a summer day
    And read Tom Sawyer.
        Now you say
With shape and hue
    A thing that only you
    Could know about
    And yet that shout
        of color—
    Sings to me
And I see clearly now at last
A moment from my long forgotten past.

A cloudy summer Sunday afternoon,
And columbines half hidden
By the shadows of the porch.
Asthenic, torpid, summer storm
That simply cannot come.
No hint of breeze to carry promise
Or to torch the fire laid on
In grates of summer passion.
Summer's gone, but Autumn is not here!
 
That time when summer lawn
Begins to suffer from
The rust brought on by crab grass;
And the trimming done in Spring
That edges black from green,
Begins to blur.
Then I can see reflected
In the mirror
By summer hallway light
Suffused and wrinkled
Edges of my coming night.
I notice all the sagging places
Rarely seen—
And wonder what my Monday
May yet mean.

    It is night in Beijing
And as the lights of the city
    Go out…
And nine million souls
    Go to sleep
I hear no noise
    of the traffic
But I can feel…
    The sound of their
        Breathing.
I am wakeful
    And I trouble
        The cockroach
In my bathroom.