The Sum of It
It’s just the way of things—to push
From the soil. Not made
The way we make ourselves each morning in the mirror,
Each hour in the office, the grocery
Or pub, catching one’s reflection
In a tinted window
To run hands through hair, adjust
Collar and tie. The numberless days
Window shopping for that look—the glamour
Of fifteen minutes under the spots. Seated here
In the grass with you, I cannot answer
The contrivance of daffodils—I can’t say they pose
Anymore or less than the harvest moon,
That orange on the surface of the lake.
Shadows
My shadows stumble over mountain, in
any language—one breath bound and released:
they trip over the span of the Atlantic; the Pyrenees,
Alps on this side; the Applachians, Rockies
over there. My words
bathing in the Mediterranean
cast shadows across cacti
on Llano Estacado; the same shadow
strolls aimlessly through snow
among the piñon on Mt. Elden—
the shadows as much me as I:
on the street, wet with morning rain,
by the train station where rooflines square,
open a gash in sky
where a flock of small, brown birds
played, surging back and forth.
A man paces ahead stopped
midstep to look up,
stopping me as well:
sparrows peppering the creek of gray-blue,
hovering one second before floating past
the walls, opening like a veil.
