Hazel Hall

From “Repetitions”

DISCOMFORT sweeps my quiet, as a wind

Leaps at trees and leaves them cold and thinned.

Not that I fear again the mastery

Of winds, for holding my indifference dear

I do not feel illusions stripped from me.

And yet this is a fear—

A fear of old discarded fears, of days

That cried out at irrevocable ways.

I cower for my own old cowardice—

For hours that beat upon the wind’s broad breast

With hands as impotent as leaves are: this

Robs my new hour of rest.

I thought my pride had covered long ago

All the old scars, like broken twigs in snow;

I thought to luxuriate in rich decay,

As some far-seeing tree upon a hill;

But, startled into shame for an old day,

I find that I am but a coward still.