I told you a year ago
while we were buried somewhere
in the mountains, I'm not sure which ones,
that I believe in magic

and you didn't say so but
I think you silently agreed—
how could you not?

You too watched the sun climb from behind
the mountains overlooking us,
and heard how joyously the birds sang when it did.

I've spent hours, probably,
strolling the same streets,
walking the same trails seeing
just house quiet my feet
can possibly be on three inches
of dried up leaves,
wondering what the doves,
what the wrens are saying
so loudly, so charismatically to each other
and it's a wonder that
one hasn't said to me
"why do you need to know
what it is that we're saying,
is it not enough to know that
we're saying it at all?"

I don’t know if I’ll ever tell anyone
About how we fell asleep
Together for the first time in
Two months how
Even after I turned over on my side and
You turned onto your stomach
Because it’s just more comfortable
That way, we kept our feet
Tangled my toes beneath yours

And we may have stayed like that all night
But I’ll never know
I slept far too soundly

Does it mean anything
that the trees still had most
of their leaves when she arrived—
we spent the day tangled
watching them fall—
I introduced her to the larks, the wren,
the ever-busy squirrels.

And does it mean anything
that the next morning nearly
all the leaves were gone,
that I and the squirrels both
took a bit longer to wake,
to leave the warmth of our beds.

I wonder what it was that they were missing.

I can sit in the woods all morning
talking the ears off the birds
while squirrels laugh at me, or
I can sit silently, reverently and listen,
and I think I'll learn something important
either way

My father scours the yard with
sweet, intentional steps
He picks a red leaf from the field maple out front,
a yellow one from the tulip poplar in the back,
says thank you to no one in particular.
Later I sit at my mother’s desk writing, again.
I notice two leaves,
one red and one a soft yellow
placed gently on top of her daily planner.

Wrote your name on another bridge today,
the second one since I left a month ago.
In another world, maybe,
I keep doing this until I die.
In another world, perhaps,
you do the same with mine.