for Rachel M. & Durban
The only thing warm tonight in the deep winter sky ~ and soon to occlude. The Wolf Moon, Ice Moon, Old Moon.
Motoring solo through the immense, silent, parted heart of the forest of Chinon. The birdsong air
I’m glad for mine. The long, aquiline form of it. The way it has shaped, informed my face;
It arrives on a warm white cloud. It arrives on soft rolls of ocean waves along a sand pebbled shore. It arrives on a bed
While the town sleeps and dreams behind me. And pined islands lay silently, invisibly off the salt-tongued shore.
A man rides his bicycle on the sea. Salt rubs the tires. Sun reflects on the soles of his shoes.
Back in time, a romantic era of English Time, they used to send a son or daughter off
How deeply are you living, friend? How sense-deep. How heart, and
After you uncork him and he appears in a serpentine of white smoke. Before he grants you
Sunny jaunts, now-and-again treats, with cousins, siblings; and parents along but somehow invisible.
The keys to the house, or car. The address of a restaurant. The grocery list. The name of a tree or bird or passing acquaintance.
Good to mark it each year on the world’s calendar. But I celebrate it every day.
After all the rain monsooning through the day, cascading through the leaves of the still—green— with-Summer trees.
A frosted cake layered with cars and people, rosetted with gulls, points out toward quiet afternoon islands.
As I awakened to this morning, eyes still closed, I was thinking of you, long-gone Mom and Dad,