Peterson - A piece of good news: poems

Dark green water, reflection of the grove of elms and pines, at the end of summer, with a woman standing in it, a statue of a woman, and a spray of water rising and falling, the fiction of a natural spring. Her arms raised in a pose of remembering some invocation to a god of beauty, and her legs twisted, with the right before the left so her thighs, under her dress, give her hips a pose and give her torso the elegance of intended height. She laughs the laurel garland off her hair, almost, and since her hair is stone, the askew of the wreath indicates an unseen wind, the kind that might visit a vineyard in a country where currency can never be broken into coin, where the midday meal has at least three courses and finishes with the ripest plums, not an assortment but a selection of one kind of good fruit. But time was made beside the glassy pool, its sunken keyhole troubled by the motion of its waters, waters that served as a mirror much clearer than the fountain, where the woman steadied her laurel with her left hand, and with her right chose more flowers, small wild white roses, for a garland around her neck. Thats where youd rather be on a hot day.