Nothing Original

Originality that's the ticket

a shocking new strophe

with syntax and meter

to conjure up ache


Love and its wreckage

mangled swans and the like

the death of a child

the isolation of aging

the usual existential insults

some self-inflicted

to beauty and grace


But i live in the hills

in the last weeks of summer

choke cherries ferment

to wine in the goldenrod

hawks in migration

sailing southwest after a storm

more sky in the crowns by the day



Oh i know nothing lasts

but i cherish this life

this common life in the country

common mundane my own.