Pisgah, By Geoffrey Hill

I am ashamed and grieve, having seen you then,

those many times, as now

you turn to speak

with someone standing deeper in the shade;

or fork a row, or pace to the top end

where the steep garden overlooks the house;

around you the cane loggias, tent poles, trellises,

the flitter of sweet peas caught in their strings,

the scarlet runners, blossom that seem to burn

an incandescent aura towards evening.

This half-puzzled, awkward surprise is yours;

you cannot hear me or quite make me out.

Formalities preserve us:

perhaps I too am a shade.

From “Canaan” by Geoffrey Hill (Mariner: 80 pp., $14 paper)