The structure reminds me of certain Cavafy poems--memory of a lost time of pleasure, followed by brief lament. And that makes me question whether this brief time (also "a thing that passes") pays tribute to a long-lost friend. In that case, the narrator would have no reason at all to invoke a specific woman because he has no way of doing so. He is then limited by facts (whether autobiographical to Harrison or created.)
I dislike the opening because it makes me think of cartoon farts: ridiculous.
As the mother of boys who grew up camping and the wife of someone who tumbled up in a blue collar family, I find the stump business quite apt for what young guys do when camping and carousing in the woods. The quickness, the hurling lights and shadows, the hiss, the awakening of birds: these are more vivid for me than anything else in the poem.
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