Northampton Style

Evening falls. Someone’s playing a dulcimer

Northampton-style, on the porch out back.

Its voice touches and parts the air of summer,

as if it swam to time us down a river

where we dive and leave a single track

as evening falls. Someone’s playing a dulcimer

that lets us wash our mix of dreams together.

Delicate, tacit, we engage in our act;

its voice touches and parts the air of summer.

When we disentangle you are not with her

I am not with him. Redress calls for tact.

Evening falls. Someone’s playing a dulcimer

still. A small breeze rises and the leaves stir

as uneasy as we, while the woods go black;

its voice touches and parts the air of summer

and lets darkness enter us; our strings go slack

though the player keeps up his plangent attack.

Evening falls. Someone’s playing a dulcimer;

its voice touches and parts the air of summer.

*

From “The Bird Catcher” by Marie Ponsot (Alfred A. Knopf: 96 pp., $22)