So a Shudder

So the shutter not stir and shame you,
I set the camera down and let
the image burn, your flank a snowy
slope in a frame defined by shade.

So a shudder not wake you as slanting
sun let shadow cast chill upon your flesh,
I softly swung the window shut.

There on heights where silence
must reign, where I must swear
I’ve never been, I knew I’d leave.

*

Another poem from my middle baroque Berkeley period which, like North Hatley 1978, treats the motif of anticipated departure, foreboding of divorce — vespers, as opposed to alba.