Symbiotic stars,
unimaginable greens,
lichens in winter.

Beauty and sadness,
not wanting to be careless
with either of them.

I’ve been here before,
figuring out the blank space,
it takes a lifetime.

The blue firmament,
blue as shadows cast by snow,
blue as turkey tails.

Cold, sunny morning,
the chickadees’ sing-song call,
my dog poem-sleeps.

This beautiful land,
unforgiving as the moon,
grateful to walk it.

Soft-bodied doves perched
after breakfast in the sun—
they still don’t trust me.

Three weeks in daylight,
my dramatic hyacinths,
bowing and fainting.

Many moons ago
blue night came into my yard,
fooled, I was waiting.

Lifetime of creatures,
watching for them to come out—
land, call, nest, fly, sing.

Mysterious life,
owls hoot from across the lake,
everything turns blue.

The evening path,
lined with trees that look like ink
in a cross-hatched field.

The sun finds its way
between tall velveted trees
coated with new snow.

Day after the storm,
doves nap on my balcony,
snow clings to branches.

Crows bob through the snow—
calls muffled like they’re swimming,
the sky made of waves.

My forced hyacinths,
I put them in a sunbeam—
they reach all day long.

Sunday afternoon—
we’re tired from winter, but walk,
starburst lichens bloom.

Sorting through the past,
photographs really are proof,
all I’d forgotten.

Dried goldenrod field,
golden even in winter—
deer find their way through.

The moment passes—
the life that you’ve come to know,
eyes closed, you’re flying.