I Set My Chair

I set my chair on the driveway
and try to feel my way
into the evening solitude
as the sun and wind both call
it a day and walk over the hill.
I want a drink from the well
of silence, I want to feel
the green hand of twilight
full of its own quiet
touch my face.
Just merge, I said to myself,
into this country of stillness
as if you were a tree or wave of grass
where no one shouts or starts machines.
But the mood did not come at my call
and all I did was to strike at a swarm
of gnats around my head and swear
at a kid on a motorcycle
who had left its muffler at home.
I watch as the twilight without
a murmur frees the sky of light,
I shed a coat of hot summer sun
and shawl myself in silence.
Not quite, the motorcycle spurts
a smoke ring of obscenities—
the vulgarity of the young
is beyond apology— so I lean back
and rest my head on the stillness,
absorbed by the holy calm
as the day dries its seat and
shuts the door. Here, so still
the air seems to hold its breath,
is a transcendence of natural things
I cannot imitate. Wrapped in the folds
of my efforts, held in the hollow
of a tree’s shadow, my head buzzes
with a swarm of thoughts like gnats
as if a hole had been torn in
my screen of meditation.