While the purple martin
Sings his dawn song
The bush crickets
With their scraping chirps
Form a washboard percussion
Beneath an orchestra
Of crinkling goosefoot.

It is not the sobriety of
This great Weald
And the stately occlusal
Of her tall trees
That crowds your soul.

But the ordinariness
Of the things beneath it
That make you want
To find your own voice.

There is a kind
Of deliverance
In each day
The way the sun
Rises
A fattened berry
Full of dripping light.

And the trees below her
Glisten
To wakefulness
Under her watchful eye

While the shadows
Slip like small snakes
Down the branches
Until they disappear.

Such beauty.
Such promise.

I do not know if this life
Has purpose
Or if my prayers
Are a sigh
Carried by the wind
Into nothing.

It does not matter.

Nothing in the world
Would matter
If you were not here
To give it meaning.

Lots of ways
To sting the heart
Words with poison
Aimed like darts
And the buttery
Canorous tone of your voice
Like sugar on arsenic
To make it taste nice.

Many ways
To clear the air
Ocean dulse
Black as tar
And all I do
Is dredge this deep
And bring up things
Best left asleep.

Many times
We’ve gone too far
Like hackled dogs
That spoil for war
Panniered
Like two pack mules
Laden down
With all our wounds.

Lots of ways
To let this go
A sunset in its
Orangey throes
But a white-flagged wave
Of armistice.
Will never stop
This revenant.