A dog ran across the street and a girl
hurried after him, calling Roger,
Roger. The mechanic struck a match
on his boot-sole. The butcher
wiped his hands on his apron

stained pink. In the fields
outside town the birds chattered
and then a gun cracked, then silence,
then the birds chattering again.
Faint, but certainly a kind of music—

even the young man heard it
and lifted the rope from his neck,
stepped down carefully off
his chair and opened the window.
Yes, a woman was singing somewhere

and his lips parted too, though
he did not know the words.
It was the first day of May.
A train clattered by. Not far away
the war was starting.