I
Blacktop driveway, back warm
Skyblue holds the spinning world.
You know clouds in animal forms
Giraffes, running dogs, a beautiful woman’s
hair rivers behind her. She disappears.
Perhaps She walks the creek behind a mansion’s
dirt path broken by fallen trees, rusted bicycles
that lean along eroded embankments
shuddering with snakes, brown birds.
Air-ripe fungal funk rises
from footsteps of deer, the breath
of woodchucks. She builds a bridge
with woodland drift, excavates with metal spoons,
hunting amethyst stone in the heart of a pebble
She stirs the mud, leans into forest embrace.
Where do these waters begin? She asks no one.
II
Tall on the western slope grass grows
behind the barn. Today you follow slim animal
trails, alive & abuzz, down to the
water to rest, sun on your forehead. A breeze
riffles the hair on your arms. Evan all grown up you
wonder the Red Wings lining the fence above you that fly
& bank against cattail currents. Clouds are
few but one takes shape. A hand. Perhaps God’s?
Waving? No. Beckons you, take hold. Lightly.
Early Morning Poems 