For season after season
summer parched its stubble of earth and stone.
The shepherd remembers the joy
rising up between the silence shining hills,
all the immeasurable intervals.
You keep looking.
The long welcoming valley below the old walls,
the village laid out before the sun sets,
the olive groves glittering in the distance—
yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
The goats that follow and come
with the sweep of the hand whistling the herd
filing through the narrow gaps of stone.
The walls of home still sharing the sun’s warmth,
every beginning turning to amber at day’s end.
The world launching into nightfall
bathed in starlight.
The cypress reaching for the sky and moon
above the time worn path as Van Gogh saw them,
that’s part of the joy too.
All the treasures laid bare in the light.
Stephen Cipot
Garden City Park
