Abandonment    

I left my children in a town on a lake
in a flurry with one box of clothing
and some crackers wrapped in a napkin.
It was like a news special on abandonment,
the snow came down in a madness,
the wind shook a shrubby field.  A flock
of white geese wheeled from the shore.

There was nothing to confess.  I spied
the sun far off, a long sold pasture
the color of a pale lichen stone, the snow
was not sticking there yet, and the light was thin.
I had ten billion more winters in my nerves
and I could ride as if I burned away.