'Missed desires'

“This lonely afternoon of memories

And missed desires, while the wintry rain

(Unspeakable, the distance in the mind!)

Runs on the standing windows and away.’’

—From {Putting Up} “Storm Windows,’’ by Howard Nemerov (1920-1991). A Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, he taught at various colleges, including Bennington College, in Vermont.

Falling before the fall

"When in still air and still in summertime
A leaf has had enough of this, it seems
To make up its mind to go; fine as a sage
Its drifting in detachment down the road."

-  Howard Nemerov, "Threshold''