What is it I belong to and find like crushed mint on my shoes, 

the stepped rocks presented like a change of heart

that speaks to me as if we are of the same brotherhood,
the casual insignificance of a bird passing over this field, the way the painter,

with a flick of the brush, made me stop to think first of my father, 

then of dying, and how then I was a small boy again,

afraid to make a mistake and alert all the time like the French in Indochina 

—what is it I belong to like a residual effect, a remark

dropped handily into the conversation to prove love still exists,

the way—as we went on—the congressman couldn’t come up

with an example (that satisfied us) of the soul on lend-lease,
or, in the high valley, how we liked to stay up late, reading the old books

Mother used to keep in the kitchen, until finally Father would come out, 

a look in his eyes of a wintering sadness, and tell us to go to bed.