The sky in the pond
doubles the soft, changing day,
ecstatic with blue.

Inside the small church
Lily of the Mohawks stands
with her arms open.

The slug and the conk,
wake in the Michigan woods
to move and not move.

Ten wet cormorants
drying their wings in the bay,
a big-clouded day.

Lavender fields forever
on a blue sky, big cloud day,
the wind blowing luck.

Clouds like asterisks
over the lake I think of
that’s always like this.

Her name, Carina,
the dog at the gallery
just north of Good Hart.

The dog on the bluff,
his back to the town, bay, boats,
stares back at the house.

The head of the bay,
every July flower blooms
morning, goodmorning.

Forgotten photo
of a patterned butterfly
in still meadow grass.

I’ve become something
while waiting in the darkness,
I didn’t expect.

I became something
while waiting in the darkness,
I didn’t expect.

Pages of things made,
spread out over years and years
are remaking me.

July sunflower,
a yellow like no other,
bursting with yellow.

Wings torn like paper,
the temporary wonders
of flight and being.

Eastern swallowtail
lands like a parachutist
who can go back up.

An uncertain light,
tentative in the tall grass,
purple, and then blue.

A face made of seeds,
body and head grown from seed,
of and for the earth.

These wings are stately,
I can hear the sound they make
circling the milkweed.

Swamp milkweed, monarch,
evening at the river,
my dog in tall grass.