complacency/today’s lover

we tiptoe now more than ever
the verges of all
comfort, this house we’ve built
probably delicate
at foundation though
truth be told
we haven’t looked in years

*

I surprised myself by thinking the beard was attractive but
perhaps it was merely youth or coloring or how he leaned over
a computer for doesn’t that speak brains? it could have been
silver hair, or glasses. bow-tie and glasses. shoulder’s curve, certain
combos of eyes/lips, forearm beyond rolled-up sleeve. dressing up
the urges to make them make sense. and then
with clear maturity of thought I told myself you can’t
have everything, not in one person, not in a hundred.
what then, this craving
to bring every ever-changing facet of beauty within?

on wanting to share “To Earthward”

a day of sudden hard light:
we’ve grown so tired
watercolor gray, so
with each visible sunbeam
we anticipate snow melting
on the verge, imagine the bee-
house warming and all green
pushing from the other side,
touch to touch, still seeking
wisdom’s communion
but tree-tough, immune
to frost, to blossom

You can read Frost’s “To Earthward” here.

reparable

moss
the lesson, if it could be
so simple: see how
the cobble-moss is tough
(we walk and wheelbarrow it
over) yet so easy to uproot
(even without intention)
to rake it out and away

arbor
we say it can be
no older than the house
(so younger than Us)
but see how it rots
where wood meets earth
and the fitting-together gives
until a strong wind (or mere gust
from the right direction)
threatens to topple it

patching it up
hammer and stake, a length
of twine, and this time
no need to make a fuss
if it holds

Guesswork

twenty-five years since I wrote what I know
about your ear, and the scar by your eyebrow—
what has changed now? not predicting what you’ll say
or the plaid and check shirts in shades of blue; not
my assuming the promise of your arms but

I hardly know myself in a photo ten years old
nor remember the clothes, shoes, hair—
what I might have said there to tide another day
and another, these eroding surfaces
we call trust, comfort, habit, love

what endures? and if the core remains
unknowable? yet as worth writing about
as when we were new to ourselves, to each other