On the porch new farmer and new wife

what with supper dishes done and dried

settle into silence both let be

to hear the twilit pond’s full chorus rise

and usher in the summer prodigal

with every living creature home at last

every thing that wintered in the muck

or trailed the southern flight now back

awake to sing however loud and long

its overture to interrupted life

now Charlie lays a finger to her wrist

and in the dark her blind hand catches his

like the final bird of daylight strong

but sure it has no business out this late

about to settle for a quiet place to rest

that both agree and in that subtle touch

without another gesture trundle off

to bed beyond the night still tuning up

its purple bruise just fading in the west

still breathless in the dark not cooling yet

Paul Hunter

These and twenty-some others grew out of a long poem about shy country people finding love, a piece called “Luminaries” that first appeared in his third farming book called “Come the Harvest” (Silverfish Review Press, 2008).