Just Blue

just blue it was never about thinking

just something we knew from before our beginnings

just quickly and doomed and we grabbed it and ran

it was me it was you was it me was it you

it was something we knew it was doomed it was blue

Vigil

they spread a blanket in the field

and did no harm

they kept their distance

talking between long silences until dark

and did you get what

you want from this life even so

i did

and what did you want

to call myself beloved to feel myself

beloved on the earth

neither was in a hurry to go home

they watched the sweep of stars

and the creatures that sometimes

flung themselves in front of the moon

— middle stanza the poem "Late Fragment," and with lines by Raymond Carver

Stand Back and Watch

cut off from calendars and clocks

we'd still know it was july

by the scent of milkweed blooms

the hurricane beyond the coast

has cleared the air and even from

the gravel road we smell the globes

of nectar sweetening the sun-drenched day

how tame and bland our garden seems

when in the unmowed field all

we had to do was let it be

Pantheists

clicking makes it bigger

numerous

in the mountains

we believe it

our shadows in the

shadows of ferns

up to our hearts

in the earth

and each other

congregants in the

church of one flower

everything's

connected

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The Eternities of Summer

cooler after a splash of rain

fresh-mown hay shines in the lowering sun

the deep sweet air

holstein swing their tales in shade

doves ask existential questions

a woman in the kitchen cutting bread

her quiet song

be kind my child and leave me there

Fallen Oak

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the great oak grows greater on the ground

becoming ground as we too go to ground

leaning into the afternoon

you see it too as you know i do

we know it together at once

one word is enough there is enough

one yes is enough one smile enough

the great oak in decay time never runs out

but it runs on without us too soon

creating the magnificent now

the proof of what stevens said

death is the mother of beauty

–with a reference to Wallace Stevens

Memento Mori

i don't mind counting

the summers i have left

ten perhaps on average

it's good thoreau said

to remind ourselves each day

that we die

ten more summers

if i'm lucky

and i am i am i am

Wandering Off

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easy to get lost

in this beautifully honest

intricate world

by choice

Go, and Leave It There

Bear Run

healing deep in the laurel

healing in pure water

in tall oaks and slick stones

healing in the veins of cooler air

coursing through the crowns

healing in the late calls of birds

and in the stars appearing

healing in the strength of those

who love us back tenfold

Going to the Center

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we pause upon the little dramas of the day

and we are filled

we sense the spinning center of our lives

and it is shared