Alchemy

silver vapor of the moon

golden vapor of the sun

so does summer run afield

in the company of loving friends

this life becomes a gilded age

Reflexive

hint of a spider all that it takes

for commotion

glint of a lover all that it takes

for a notion

Still Standing

the daisies' reign has ended

they wither in the dusk

no less pleasing to my eye

lovely in nature's candlelight

having lived through storms

battered and still standing

no less passion stirred

can it be what is left

at the end is desire

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