Emile found his reading glasses

Tomorrow, before sunrise, we leave to return to America. I'm excited - I'm missing the Green Mountains. This has been an amazing month: slow, warm, and rich. I'm certainly very well fed. I leave these hills, lake, and mountains with another short poem inspired by a fellow guest staying in this old villa (the original cellar dates to around 300 C.E., we think).


Emile found his reading glasses

Perhaps propped against a stone -
yellow, pink, grey -
that had fallen from the old wall;
or left, half-open, in the dry grass
and fragrant mint and sage
because he'd gotten up too fast;
maybe in a crook in the roots
of a twisted olive, silver-green,
that matched the color of the frames:
the clear lenses disappeared into the land
where he searched all afternoon.
I didn't ask when, this morning,
they appeared
neatly folded, on a book
in a leather chair
by the window with the lake view.