how did this happen
well that’s who I wanted to be

at last a woman
in the old style sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt grandchild sliding
on off my lap a pleasant
summer perspiration

that’s my old man across the yard
he’s talking to the meter reader
he’s telling him the world’s sad story
how electricity is oil or uranium
and so forth I tell my grandson
run over to your grandpa ask him
to sit beside me for a minute I
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips.”
― Grace Paley

Today like any other day,
we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open
the door to the study
and begin reading. Take
down the dulcimer.

Let the beauty we love be
what we do.
There are hundreds of ways
to kneel and kiss the ground.

~ Rumi

On the gravel drive, a sleek-skinned slug
moving slowly, antennae swiveling about.
A bumble bee, flying along side me as I run
its wings moving a thousand times faster than my feet.
Horses in the pasture, does at the edge of the woods,
a new fawn, thrushes, blackbirds on the wire and
buttercups by the armful strewn
across the fields.
This is my prayer, my alter here,
to move among this tall clover,
to run one foot after the next,
and to take note of this always and again
blooming glorious day

The white herons, a pair, that fly overhead
as I drive on a flood closed road,
water licking at the front door of a white house
the whole first floor a marshland spilling across rugs,
abandoned furniture, things left as the water continued to rise.

The lake is engorged, spilling across the causeway
washing over the sand bags that are stacked like prayers
heavy and hopeful in the hands of men.

After the herons a V of geese confuses me, flying northward
several dozen in formation, their long necks like compass needles
while elsewhere geese have goslings now; grey and yellow
like the tornado threatening clouds that came and went,
lightening splitting the sky like an over-ripe fruit,
and thunder that made the picture frames clatter.

I’m always on the lookout for the way things will turn out
next: the yellow dog, Butters, bounding to greet us;
the cat who waits at the door bringing mice;
the grasshoppers starting to saw away at their summer song
in the fields where grass grows taller than ever, taller
than a two year old child’s head, even though
the corn still waits, and the garden waits
unplanted save for last season’s volunteers: tomatoes
always find a way back, and lettuces without explanation;
certain things keep on in their own fashion without us.