Monastery

Robert Wolf

Wait, and be chaste, until the tree by night
Below your window blackens a design,
A lacquered print—a Hiroshige line—
Across the curling, pale, intense twilight.

Be still and be reserved until the cows
Upon the autumn valley seem to dot
The brown as though a brush had laid each spot
Of red and white precisely where they browse.

A pencil’s point preserves the kiss unkissed…
The beauty of our bodies, the refined
And tortuous twistings of the humorous mind,
Slide day by day into forgotten mist:

But you and I, my love, bear these in trust,
And may not trade them for a clasp of dust.