The brightness persists,
I am not forgotten,
my face is your face.

The light is fleeting
these final days of the year,
haikus come in sleep.

At the tops of trees
the seed eaters leap and munch,
nests lined with cattails.

Fragile and dreaming,
the unlikeliness of it—
you and me, here, now.

The wind in these trees—
gathered in their high branches,
sent across the lake.