Variations On A Fragment

Variations On A Fragment By Trumbull Stickney/

I hear a river thro' the valley wander

Whose water runs, the song alone remaining.

A rainbow stands and summer passes under,

Flowing like silence in the light of wonder.

In the near distances it is still raining

Where now the valley fills again with thunder,

Where now the river in her wide meander,

Losing at each loop what had been gaining,

Moves into what one might as well call yonder.

The way of the dark water is to ponder

The way the light sings as of something waning.

The far-off waterfall can sound asunder

Stillness of distances, as if in blunder,

Tumbling over the rim of all explaining,

Water proves nothing, but can only maunder.

Shadows show nothing, but can only launder

The lovely land that sunset had been staining,

Long fields of which the falling light grows fonder.

Here summer stands while all its songs pass under,

A riverbank still times runs by, remaining.

I will remember rainbows as I wander.

--John Hollander

(Lines 1-3 comprise Stickney's "Fragment IX")