it is enough for me, this life
one I’ve chosen again and again
now worn and fraying like a favorite shirt
threadbare in places with some holes
no longer a protection from chill or rain
a kindly reminder of advancing constraints
still serviceable for my brief season
nothing I’d offer to anyone else
a tattered beautiful thing
mornings finally bring
a hint of relief to fields withered brown
worn to distress by heat and drought
unceasing demands of worrisome summer
come autumn, will there be respite
not just for lands to lie fallow
but also ourselves
will we rest at all
our surround urges us to run ever faster
in futile race after pyrite and gold
each will slip from skeletal grasp and return
a mineral added to the dirt, unheeding that we died
let us bow our heads and pray
once I decided to throw away this world
as a glittering prize that can never be reached
I began to see the vivid greens of grass and tree,
such variegated hues, with sudden splashes of contrast
in the cardinal perched upon a limb or a robin’s bold breast
I view these now when my eyes are failing
I hear the mad chatter and scold from backyard squirrels
with ears likewise diminished for their task
as if in these shortened minutes before I depart
a veil has fallen away that once obscured
and I walk amidst light that dances with the laughter of emptiness
a sighting of a mountain cicada, green-shrouded
silent, perhaps dying or dead
a gentle thing out of place on the hot tarmac of the road
far different from the first brood that appeared one year on the Gulf
huge monstrous beings with bright red eyes
wings so sharp that they would draw blood
if their pointed neon-hued legs did not do that first
(I bled a lot that year, being insatiably curious)
soon they were EVERYWHERE
covering not just trees but everything outdoors
coating the banks of bayous and the surface of the pool
they changed the rhythms of life by making us adjust
then vanished, a short season of dark magic
we called them soldier boys
I never knew why
she is gone. that is all.
the how, the why, the when are nothing.
they cannot change these things:
the bed no longer warmed by her long limbs.
the blanket dampened by my tears.
the pillow lonely without her head.
that she walked into death with willing hands,
the river her only road of escape,
this does not matter.
her absence is the bedrock of grief,
the hard ground where I have lain,
and from here I have to stand.
the wind knew what I would not
whispered it through the trees
and they remembered it also
made it shine like gold on every leaf
weighing so heavy with unspoken love
felling each one by one
a foliaged pool spilled across the coal dust
the dry rustle as I walked
the brilliant glint that caught the sun
these poured recall to my cracked broken heart
I knelt in the trail and cried
the wild cherry lies half hidden beneath a scaled root
an ancient finger reaching in gnarled arboreal hunger
it fell ripened red with a side of yellow but would sour the tongue
though the oak might seek that tang as a bracing relief
from the sweetness of rotting things
the land beyond the fence belongs to untamed plants and feral creatures
and all that reach whatever end moulder there
leaves joining fur and bones in the fecund of decay
so many times she said I died,
then I’d take a breath and live.
again. until the next time.
years later I saw her.
for me it was as if for the first time,
yet she gazed at me and smiled,
“I would know you anywhere.”
when I left, she held my face in her hands,
her touch a gentle fierce love.
then I remembered.
and I know why I returned.
rich with earth and sun and rain
life itself as it ran through seed and vine
heady enough to make one dream
not just of meals laden with bounty
but even of future ambition
other crops sown in dirt raised to harvest
generations that farm and forage
wisdom once lost regained and put to use
in last delicate balance with new
and in our waning perhaps we say
at the end finally we understand how to live
