There is a hornet in the room   / and one of us will have to go   / out the window into the late   / August midafternoon sun. I / won. There is a certain challenge   / in being humane to hornets   / but not much. A launch draws   / two lines of wake behind it   / on the bay like a delta / with a melted base. Sandy   / billows, or so they look, / of feathery ripe heads of grass,   / an acid-yellow kind of / goldenrod glowing or glowering   / in shade. Rocks with rags   / of shadow, washed dust clouts   / that will never bleach. / It is not like this at all.   / The rapid running of the   / lapping water a hollow knock / of someone shipping oars:   / it’s eleven years since   / Frank sat at this desk and   / saw and heard it all   / the incessant water the   / immutable crickets only   / not the same: new needles   / on the spruce, new seaweed   / on the low-tide rocks   / other grass and other water   / even the great gold lichen   / on a granite boulder   / even the boulder quite   / literally is not the same /       II / A day subtle and suppressed   / in mounds of juniper enfolding   / scratchy pockets of shadow / while bigness—rocks, trees, a stump— / stands shadowless in an overcast   / of ripe grass. There is nothing   / but shade, like the boggy depths   / of a stand of spruce, its resonance   / just the thin scream / of mosquitoes ascending. / Boats are light lumps on the bay   / stretching past erased islands   / to ocean and the terrible tumble   / and London (“rain persisting”)   / and Paris (“changing to rain”).   / Delicate day, setting the bright / of a young spruce against the cold / of an old one hung with unripe cones   / each exuding at its tip / gum, pungent, clear as a tear,   / a day tarnished and fractured   / as the quartz in the rocks / of a dulled and distant point,   / a day like a gull passing / with a slow flapping of wings   / in a kind of lope, without / breeze enough to shake loose   / the last of the fireweed flowers, / a faintly clammy day, like wet silk   / stained by one dead branch   / the harsh russet of dried blood.