As if from Letters of Surveyor Samuel Maclay

                         sent for you last week dogwoods

a swansong white flowers

on whitewater weather continues

~

cloudy but little rain intelligence

                         with its attendant circumstances

embarrasses me much no word

~

                         from something to do patience

exhausted dear shaved myself

and then returned the word

~

pluvial the maple a map

                         of the river's tributaries rinsed

glistening province of inquiry

~

                         my black nets set past cattails

dredge drawn up leaves

alluvium grasp and clatter

~

of crawfish all hunger

                         could gather this morning I saw

a deer fording the river

~

                         to a small island I felt unable to work

full proof having nothing

the mind destroys everything careful

~

the world is

                         the river brims first the few

roads go

~

                         under but this is a letter weather

the shine of water on nouns

let it be remembered

~

I made a plum pudding

                         in a bag as fine a one as I ever ate

this with a dish of tea

~

                         concluded the month of May obliged

to spend the morning baking

bread things I admire their industry

~

water folds the arms

                         of a host of brown coats shine worn

whitely into each elbow

~

                         I write I fancy I hear canoe poles

returning this not only keeps me

uneasy for the moment but in pain

~

                         in consequence as I am in want

of word I imagine your letter corn

stubble troubling the flood fields

~

no geese riding the river's stir

                         and fervor what you sweep from

the porch pine needles berry

~

                         stains click of seed husks things

birds leave I leave you too

and send what facts I can sunken road

~

refracted bent branch made heavy

                         with wet black bark a clot of leaves flood

plain and waterline my loneliness

~

                         a season when the bank's given the river

rising everything it had here I am

in country unsettled without either

~

canoe or horse a field remarkable

                         for the great number of bones found

in it I write to report

~

they all appear in good humor