Three Trumpeter swans
glide on the frozen river,
chat to each other.

For David Lynch

The morning ether
rises above the treeline —
I’m lost in that dark.

We look for the light:
the brindle cat or new bloom,
heartbeat companions.

In kitchens and streets
we adjust to time travel —
black and white, color.

In my grandma’s house,
my dad sits with a slight smile,
in the old photo.

These, too much to bear,
the months of the cold hard crack,
freezing, re-freezing.

She thinks like magic —
she remembers her past selves
and keeps them all close.

Woodpecker feathers —
a pair, each dressed with eight full moons,
on the forest floor.

Doorways and windows,
retreating and advancing —
sometimes passing through.

There but for the grace
of place, time, circumstance, and
recklessness of luck.

The arrow turning
sideways and also straight through —
always, the trying.

It’s not even dawn —
I’ve built a small monument
to what could still be.

It’s walking the path—
happiness doesn’t begin,
it just is, is, is.

We float on this raft,
stars rise and fall above us —
shining in our eyes.

Ginkgo in winter,
robins looping all around,
sun setting silent.

Robins rushing out
from the woods during the snow —
oh, January.

Like buoyant notes found
with the greatest tenderness,
each tree snow-dusted.

Feed the birds first thing,
while the sky is still gray-dark,
clouds layered with cold.

Goldenrod will bloom
again along this cold path —
the sun on our backs.

I’ll speak our names here,
to the lichen in these woods,
to remember us.