Recalling hospitality in the depths
of a valley—two houses side by side,
a swimming pool with the shadows
of ilex pines falling across its water
in the late afternoon,
graceful, witty hosts, now ghosts, pine shadows
still cast upon the pool’s rippling surface.

We leave nothing but shadows of dust
in our wake and then, are gone forever,
forever. Meanwhile. waiting today,
waiting in early spring for orange-tree buds,
to open and blossom,
nothing to wish for, sitting in the sun,
nothing to regret, except absent friends.