In the cool, deep woods,
ruffled around a tree stump,
beauty of this world.

Mutual flourishing—
coral mushroom’s crowns and arms,
growing in the dark.

The trick of the mind,
days that feel like other days,
years like other years.

My dear sunflower,
three vowels raise your round head,
bee on your face.

The sun on their backs,
and the song stuck in their throats,
mark the era’s end.

This last habitat—
we expected to flourish,
armature in place.

The wet cattail marsh,
sun catching every blade—
cool August morning.

August like April,
birds rejoice for paradise,
singing all day long.

August skies fall in,
pulling all the wildflowers—
faces always up.

The details of life,
easy to miss—overlook—
not know, they are life.

Nearly mid-August,
the cicadas have started,
and this sunflower.

Branch to branch to branch,
moving along as we walk—
Goldfinches sing here.

I say to myself,
I say to everyone:
see this, don't forget.

If I could step out
of myself and into this
wild, blooming milkweed.

Remember the words,
remember the poets well,
the attempt, at least.

Years of making things,
trying to make sense of days—
sometimes a blank mind.

Friday on the bridge,
we see the flowing, blooming,
fantastical world.

The velvety bank
of the full, bustling river,
lush with memory.

William Carlos Williams wrote
about a white field of wild carrot,
like this one, today.

The teasel comes in
for the Eastern Swallowtail,
soft-bodied, soft-eyed.