Who was the woman

I saw walking through the garden of my thoughts?

I watched as she plucked

         a rose from my heart,

And placed it in her hair–

Gulling her folly fair

         and trifle art;

Her plays of counterplots.

And who was the woman

I saw treading in the meadows of my fears?

Unerringly, she

         with her witching rod

Deep sorrow pools divined;

Overflooding my mind.

         With lolling prod,

         She brought my soul to tears.

Fall 1986