First Ghazal

When the forsythia burst into blathering flame
and the star stopped over the barn, she knew.

When she would not give him a lock of hair
or the apple from under her arm, he knew.

Thousands of hogs. The woodlot, the garden gone.
This was not the farm she knew.

Oh well, he had his harness to mend,
and she, her socks to darn, he knew.

They'd come to her for a garlic wreath
or the words to that charm she knew.

Ron would have kept to he and she,
but his name was proper form, he knew.