A winged seed just took to wind
and landed on my lap
like hope and babies--  
I imagine
I have never had

like memories
of walking home from school in May

Stunned by perfect curl of comma
by design
Veined paper
thin
with spine
of strength attached
to guide its flight
of swirling fertile
to the ground
of mind

To love--
the tan and winged snow
descending
to the heights of trees

on both sides of this moment

a child
in a future forest

The critters got my trash last night
Left it on the deck
forgotten
Till the ones with night shine
in their eyes
feasted between
cat litter, coffee grounds
chicken bones and wraps
A lovely chore to start the day
before sunlight and my coffee
picking through the mess
What I really want to do
is plant
tomatoes, spices, squash, and
Packman broccoli
things that grow
delicious
in sunlight

I suppose that raccoon
feels the lucky, yucky same
about good fortune of my trash
Same
about the moonlight
that he dines by

the woods are never quiet,
like a sea they sing to the wind,

the birds carry the leaves to the sky,
they whistle and dance,

their voices weave through the woods
each song-thrush like a small storm,

the skies drift forever,
the honey sun rises and falls,

you ground me like an anchor,
pull my head out of those poet clouds.

Sometimes I drink by myself
like too many do, maybe you, too
when the wind blows like it does
here on the coast when it’s clear
and the light of dead stars come
down to swim in your circle of blood
while thinking back about the sisters
of boys I used to run with, oh, you know
we’d give our trigger fingers just to
touch them again, but the war keeps
seeping back into us like the poison
that pours into our rivers and creeks
from long gone cotton fields now paved
where the clouds of those days
are all that gets weighed in at the gin
I swear, there’s a pattern to all of this
like the weave of a tight skirt on a girl
who I once fell in love with in school
I went all crazy from watching her twist.