What would I become
if I laid down by this tree?
Sun, teaching me things.

Warm November day,
all the insect songs are gone,
snowbirds just arrived.

They want to take off,
milkweed seeds I’ve collected—
built to fly and bloom.

Snowbirds in and out
of the yellow autumn field,
their chatter comes first.

November shadows,
long, confiding days begin—
new poems in fields.

The day starts foggy,
my mother’s fall lavender
fills up the whole room.

All this tender life,
the low hum underneath it,
snowbirds overhead.

November morning,
Venus in the glowing sky,
lighting my dark mind.

So, I kept going—
making things that were for me,
what I thought was right.

Trees draw in sun,
changing at the cold lake’s edge,
filling it with leaves.

Alyssum and thyme,
I stopped tending that garden
when my life ran off.

Other than birdsong,
only the sound of the leaves
in our thankful ears.

Like a swimming fish—
the purple-toothed polypore,
in the forest’s depths.

Impossible seeds,
the milkweed sends each one out
into this plain world.

Forget me, forget,
everything’s bigger than me,
forget me, forget.

Sun changes the woods,
wind breaks the lake reflection,
leaves on the surface.

I say to let go,
the heartbreak and the breakers,
waiting for a sign.

The deepest season,
orange trees sink into the
cold, gray, glassy lake.

The peace of morning—
my dog napping in the sun,
poems in his ears.

The cold heart holdout—
late October garden rose,
under the white moon.