Evening Journey

FRANCE like the map of tenderness fell open
And green, green were the spreading arteries
Where every road was a leafy procession,
As poplar, maple, beech in lovely series
Opened the way to secret villages.
We were the wind, but even wind was slowed
As shadows made a river of the road.

We welcomed with a deep renewed devotion
Those gifts of evening wrapped in return:
The absent-minded cows moved in slow-motion,
The sleeping dog did not stir at our horn,
The hayeart stopped us, bulging to the barn,
And red geraniums on each window sill
Warm like a handclasp, and as casual

The immemorial boy fished in a stream
While the earth spun its way toward sleep;
Old women in the doorways sat to dream,
And at the fountain the old horse drank deep;
All animals and men were coming home.
We drove so fast it might have seemed like fleeing
Yet all we knew was peace and its sweet flowing.

And as the moon rose and the mists rose too,
Still all we saw was radiance distilled
As we rushed down the tree-roads into blue.
We were the new world nourished by the old,
The wild natural heart gravely fulfilled
By France at its most pure that all men bless,
O human world, O map of tenderness!