We weren’t too worried about beauty when
The season opened, —oaks over the old
Pumice stone quarry downhill, with its pond,
Going gold in that all but exhausted light
Reflected, in a last spasm of what,
Ever alert to changes, the first rain
Brings by, backed up along the ridge toward town
And down valley, touching the waiting bay…
Well, if mere “understanding” is the key
Coordinated universal time
Will offer us, the world rolling by,
Stubbornly, we’ll ignore the vanishing
That’s trickling up nearby seasonal streams,
Salmon against the current, shaking free.
So oak leaves settle on the forest floor.
And fall’s no more a form of breathing out, —
It’s all openness now, last laughs have been
Vouchsafed, withdrawn, then granted in a kind
Of pitiless accounting—I’m “all in.”
It’s all a gamble. Speaking with the bee
Person last week, I have this great idea
But lose it in the hum of flying home,
Hoping to hear the reassuring word,
That somehow, what you wrote got past the guard,
Reached spirits in the cold, second-growth woods
Along the Hudson. Shoot me an email:
It looks as though van der Waals forces hem
Us in for now, our world alight with ice
And blowing snow, a type we rarely see
In coastal northern California, free
Of any taint of commerce, the great sky
At peace with us at last. Despair’s a sin
And we won’t take the moss for granted when
Winter rain lights it up—close to the sea,
It won’t do to be backing off, being true
By faking it. You have to build from here
By tearing down sand castles in the air,
Gradually building back: I hope to show
That
x to the
nth power takes us home,
Flying blind under the weather radar now.
For Lynne Knight
XI.07.2008
