Summer Storm
This is a memory that the speaker is sharing with a stranger he met at a wedding, but with whom he wishes he had kept in contact. The memory makes him begin to ponder all of the other "what ifs" in his life, and to consider how his life might be different if some of the fleeting moments and meetings shared with strangers had become something more.
Majority
The name of the poem refers to twenty-one, the age of majority, and the age that his child would be had they survived. The speaker of the poem is talking to the child, and telling him that he has imagined him living vicariously through the childhood of others, marking off those milestones of childhood in the same way that the parents of living children have done.
The Lost Garden
The narrator is lost in melancholy, remembering times gone by that make him happy, and also saddened by the fact that these times are in the past. He refers to his summer being gone, which is a metaphor for the passing of time; his summers are behind him and so the careless joys of youth are as well. He is also wondering whether he should have taken a different path in life other than the one that he took, and in what ways his life might be different had he done so
Litany
This is a poem about death. The speaker begins by listing the things, the possessions, that meant so much to the deceased in their lifetime, but their life was what gave the things meaning. Now they are just lost items, random belongings that do not have meaning to the person who is now in possession of them. The poem then becomes a tribute to his lost love for whom he is conducting a burial; he refers to the words spoken by a pastor at a funeral and is clearly both angry and distraught.
Words
This is a poem about the wonders of nature, although it is ironic because it is also a poem about the unnecessary quality of words, which are the tools of the poet's trade. The speaker contends that things that do not have the power of speech are still just as beautiful without being able to name themselves, and he also explains that it is not the word in of itself, but our interpretation of it, that gives what we are describing a meaning. The poem is similar in philosophy to the observation taken from Shakespeare, "a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet". There is wonder in nature, and in emotions, regardless of what we call them.
Unsaid
This poem is about what goes on inside a person and the way in which it might differ from what is going on above the surface. We say things to our journals or in letters never sent that we are not brave enough to say to the object of our affections, or our dislike, come to that. He ends by reminding us that we are more effusive in our love of the dead than we ever were to their faces when they were living.
The Next Poem
The speaker describes the act of writing a poem, and also the strong emotions that writing it provoke. There is anticipation with the first line but also a nervousness - what if nothing that follows the first line sounds quite right? Gradually, like an architectural blueprint, the poem takes shape so that everyone can see its ups and downs and its patterns. He also explains that it is easier to express an emotion in the form of poetry because the verses suggest what the poet means, but unless you are the person to whom the work is directed you cannot truly understand its inspiration or its purpose.
