I long for long and many days
of length and time,
all told,
until some distant autumn day
...
Somersault of stars
and glittering stream,
the Pleiades -
cheering bright kin
...
Wandering wonderments,
sometimes lost
sometimes awonder,
meandering but purposive,
...
I put in seeds today - acorns
from trees in the neighborhood:
black oak, red oak, willow oak, pin oak.
Solid names for solid trees, fifty years and growing.
...
Desiccate, not dead.
A giant's vast hot canopy
whose simmering shimmering horizon
bellies up boulder silhouettes
...
Now all the costumes of the day are shed
and put away in closets, bureaus, drawers.
Outside the snow blows round and up and down,
but nothing like the race of storms inside.
...
Journeyman, apprentice, what's a guild after all
but something of a nest
where fledglings learn even from mutual jostling:
squawking aloud to, at and for each other,
...
To freely be a fool and truly free -
most feared at heart yet secretly desired.
I keep it closely cupped up next to me
and glimpse at it in swift and furtive peeks,
...
It feels instinctive,
like a birthing -
groaning push, sweating duress
sputtering sphinctered words.
...