I once wrote a list of things
That represented me :

Smoke from a discarded cigarette,
Rain on the Ocean,
A saturday matinee.

I wrote that I was a penny
On a train track, waiting.

             ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈

Well guess what, folks-
The engine  has arrivd.
        ljm

How does a poet leave this world?
Does she quietly lay down her pen,
Tidy her desk, stack the sheafs of paper,
Turn off her lamp and say

Goodbye to her dreams and conceits,
To morning walks along the salt marshes,
Keeping company with herons
        and wild geese,

Where
        she entered her church in the woods
And emerged with poems of the ineffable,
Told through the perfection of fox and rabbit
And dawn's shimmer-mist just above the water;
Told through the unabashed mystery of life --

What the poet put down is now relinquished.
Yet it is her heart
Her heart still
That beats in every line --

Soon
Autumn's grand parade will clamor
      through the streets
Drumbeats
Chilly harvest of marching bands
      and hayrides
      The ebbing tides
of long days
Confetti blown from reluctant trees
Fluttering ochres and rocketing rubies
As nature lets the clock run out

Blow summer a sweet kiss goodbye --

It is September Eleven.
The Survivor Tree speaks:
                Remember --

Every year the chaos
      of that day comes fresh again.
The disconnect
      of sheer helplessness
As we gathered around televisions
To watch people dying and
      giant debris clouds billowing
      through Manhattan.
Those images of victims running away
Covered in choking white dust
Burned into our collective psyche,
Feeling so ashamed to be human.
Then in the aftermath,
So proud to be human --

We always find our redemption

There is a field I travel to
Where I lie in the tall grasses
With the earth as my pillow
And she sings to me through
           the shuddering trees.

Her voice , so wistful,
Brings me to tears --

And the wildflowers whisper:
There is light in everything,
         They say. The proof is in the
Dawn and all around you --
In the scrub pines and their
Noisy seminar of birds;
In the taste of a plums juicy flesh;
In mist rising in the far-off hills.

Sunrise and all that follows
Is how you know:
        Eternity is yours and
                always close--

We cruised down the Seine
        on the Bateaux Mouches
        you and I
You gave me your coat
It was starry-cool that night
We stood on the deck
        and sipped Remy Martin
Your love still alive then --

We sat at the cafe
Where Hemingway paused
        back in the day
Remember the gray-muzzled dog
        lapping spilled cognac
        under the table
You looked into my eyes
        With joy's surprise --

That warm sun-love day
        on the Champs d'Elysees
You leaned in and kissed my hair
I knew you would never leave
I tipped a mime along the way
Who hid his face with a hat
        How fresh was that
Paris was never more beautiful --

We roamed the Latin Quarter
And drank bordeaux in our room
You couldn't resist me --
How was I to know
        you would go away
Without a word to say
Leaving our postcards
Scattered 'cross the bed
I should have burned them
        all that night
Instead of clutching them
To my heart --