VISITATION  

Which rooms are lit most happily 

I still recall, and sit for half

An hour just to watch the leaves 

Of later fall pass through and mottle 

My reflection, which appears

As far again beyond the pane.

She sees me out; the car is cozy, 

But my headlight eyes are flat 

And frigid where they touch, and make 

Me feel that on the land I cleared

With long devoted labor of 

My ax and hand, a century 

Of saplings bristle in this wind.

Robert N. Watson’s poems have been published in The New Yorker, Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, Ariel, Warwick Review, Boston Literary Review, and other journals. He is a professor of English at UCLA.