The loops and chatters—
sky and trees full of Robins,
we enter their woods.

Not a moment lost,
voices never forgotten,
life beyond living.

Belief starts over —
lights go out every day,
our hands left empty.

Creek changed by beaver,
now still enough to reflect
above the new dam.

Mackerel skies all day,
like a sheet of paper, drawn
steadfast, defiant.

These snowy Sundays,
pulling meaning from blank skies,
solemn, leafless trees.

The geese break their V
into two Vs over us,
wings the only sound.

Floating and honking,
one hundred forty three geese
make everywhere home.

Sun turned the room pink,
rising above the treeline,
snowflakes form in air.

Attention given—
caring for these smallest things,
the hope in beauty.

Memory and light
meet at dusk on this still lake,
maybe it’s prayer.

Cloudy, blank sky day,
two Trumpeter swans at rest,
heads tucked on their backs.

Woodpeckers are out,
a flock of titmice chatting—
camaraderie.

Blue valley of sky
above the humming forest—
and our lives today.

Starry-skinned mushrooms —
an orange constellation
shining under snow.

The color of trees,
first one deer, then the other,
leave tracks in the snow.

The end of the day,
we walk the silent deer path
out of the forest.

For Franz Wright

Not sick but not saved,
he walks the river, amazed—
the dead poet’s son.

The first snow falling,
ribs and bones of trees revealed,
the nests abandoned.

Vigilant as stars,
mushrooms like spinning night skies
climb the forest tree.