All good or nothing —
thinking of the warm wheat field,
the sower’s good seeds.

Breaking the bleak day,
fungi, moss, and lichen bloom
in late November.

The bright morning moon
hangs above my mother’s house,
maples hold their leaves.

Cloudy after work —
the song sparrow not singing,
and we keep trying.

Young deer listening —
ears alert, crunching acorns,
cold coming on quick.

Antlers kept above,
he swam across the river
and disappeared fast.

Branches hold the moon —
geese call and fill the whole sky
with sounds of leaving.

Wind on the water,
an eagle coasts and disappears
above the river.

Unbothered by us,
geese congregate riverside,
preening with shadows.

Clouds like a Sunday
pull over us as we walk,
criss-crossed in the sky.

Each one an arrow,
seven geese honk in a V —
a world of their own.

We set our watches
to the heartbeats around us —
sun coming in and out.

Bound, bound, bound, bound, bound,
the freedom of the blue sky —
bound, leap, jump, walk, run.

The dawn like a grave
of the most beloved one
we didn’t protect.

Being here is strange,
beauty at every turn —
and still, the worry.

Their calls peal across
the river, telling the time —
finding each other.

His nose to the sun
in the warm November grass —
it seeps, seeps, seeps in.

Sun caught in maples
on the first of November —
the chill comes in quick.

A nuthatch honks and
hides in the pines as we pass,
the gingko, pleading.

Sun dogs overhead
while the gingko holds its leaves
as a third false sun.