Today,
from a distance, I saw you
walking
away, and without a sound
the
glittering face of a glacier
slid
into the sea. An ancient oak
fell
in the Cumberlands, holding only
a
handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering
corn to her chickens looked up
for
an instant. At the other side
of
the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the
size of our own sun exploded
and
vanished, leaving a small green spot
on
the astronomer's retina
as
he stood in the great open dome
of
my heart with no one to tell.