Progress Report

Vikram Seth

My need has frayed with time; you said it would.
It has; I can walk again across the flood
Of gold silk popples on the straw-gold hills
Under a deep California sky that expels
all truant clouds; watch squads of cattle graze
By the radio-telescope; Blue-battered jays
Flas raucous squawking by my swivelling head
While squirrels sine-wave past over the dead
Oak-leaves, and not miss you - although I may
Admit that near the telescope yesterday
by a small bushcovered gully I blundered on
five golden fox-cubs playing in the sun
nd wished you had been there to see them play;
But that I only mention by the way