She had become my Sabbath

All Last Night

All last night I had quiet

In a fragrant dream and warm:

She had become my Sabbath,

And round my neck, her arm.

I knew the warmth in my dreaming;

The fragrance, I suppose,

Was her hair about me,

Or else she wore a rose.

Her hair I think, for likest

Woodruffe 'twas, when Spring

Loitering down the wet woodways

Treads it sauntering.

No light, nor any speaking;

Fragrant only and warm.

Enough to know my lodging,

The white Sabbath of her arm.

Lascelles Abercrombie

porcupine

some other year

I told you: look, it is snowing!

It was beginning 

just then, outside 

in the winter sunlight,

first flakes erratic and 

quick, from a cloud-

swept wilderness.

You were three years old.
I loved you, and

the same snow was falling 

in some other year

when I was lonely.

for Maggie, Anna, and Ben