Freezes and Junes

by Donald Hall

She laid bricks arranged
in V’s underneath

the garden’s rage of blossom.
After her death, after

the freezes of many winters,
her bricks rise and dip

undulant by the wellhead,
in summer softened by moss,

and in deep June I see
preterite, revenant poppies

fix, waver, fix, waver, fix…

–Read at St. Lydia’s on February 12