My understanding
has come close from time to time:
only this moment.

Moon over the creek,
the moon in the creek water,
the moon in me, too.

All that’s gone missing —
birds in the dark thicket,
they don’t think of it.

The soft crunch and pull
of still-green creekbank leaves
in the young deer’s mouth.

Feasts for goldfinches,
burnweed about to set sail —
gone with the first rains.

An exclamation
of high clouds over the creek —
have I changed today?

“Oh, Mack,” I say it
at least once every day —
to you and to me.

Ten months without you.

Light in the alley,
sun rises on the heron
fishing at the creek.

Of course, a haiku,
a raindrop on the rapids,
a lifetime in it.

This goose is grieving,
he survives on foxtail grass,
eaten fast, alone.

Rain into the creek,
bees fall asleep on Wingstem,
deer blend with the field.

Everything at work,
overnight and all day long —
slug high in mustard.

Clouds over the creek,
the tree that catches light, dark —
only crickets sing.

for Annie Dillard

Uncontainable
sky over this paradise
of grief and beauty.

Symbolic to me —
but just deer living their lives,
seasons changing fast.

The world says, “don't wait,”
sun rising over two deer,
alert at the creek.

The monarch hangs like sunlight
from the tall purple loosestrife
that was made for him.

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