I’ll call it good luck —
a red-legged grasshopper
sunning at my door.

Your ashes falling
from our hands to the creek grass,
a fish leaps out, in.

for Mack

Your ashes falling
from our hands to the creek grass,
you’re everywhere now.

for Mack

Your ashes falling
from our hands to the creek grass,
a butterfly lands.

for Mack

Your ashes falling
from our hands to the creek grass
where small crane’s-bill grows.

for Mack

Labor Day morning,
church bells a minute early,
then the train whistle.

The creek is rain deep,
clouds caught above and below,
blue sky, an eyebrow.

My mother’s birthday,
we all walk out to the creek,
milkweed tall as deer.

Memory, that is
this wrecking ball in my chest,
breaks the sky, the day.

Spotted touch-me-not
nods into goldenrod and
late purple loosestrife.

September starts hot,
morning fog hangs a long time —
the heron fishes.

A great poet dies,
we practice resurrection,
his last August sun.

for Wendell Berry

The big morning sky
reminds me of the poets,
writing it all down.

The sun in this tree —
it gets caught every morning,
held briefly, warmly.

Eye to eye, creekside,
the fawn with butterfly spots,
burrs on her soft legs.

The train whistles through,
the goose munches foxtail grass,
trees share the sunlight.

There are no secrets,
only finding out about —
only mysteries.

Back into the flow
of light and all kinds of songs
that katydids sing.

For Dolly Parton

Owls called here last night,
the moon, nearly full, floated
in the creek, turned blue.

These are the edges
of who we are, what we are —
of land, water, sky.