MOMENT OF PEACE (Poem)

The early morning mist is gone.
The sun, still low, jets through the trees
Whose trunks' deep shadows cut across the green.


The air still fresh remains.
The creek still winds down to the seas
Between steep banks of mud and stone.


A fragile scene, calm and quiet.
A phantom scene forgotten soon,
As life sweeps past this moment of peace.




Originally written in 1962 and published in 1996 in Stevens, C.A. (ed), Carvings in Stone, National Library of Poetry, p. 528 (Library of Congress: ISBN 1-57553-066-X)