SONG

Each year I forget

how the cold saps energy

from the body used

to soft winds, shoulders

and arms kissed by the hot sun.

The flesh remembers.

Sleep, long and deep and

as one grows old deathly

sweet calls me to life.

21 November 22

VIII

I’ll wait. She’ll come back.

Beauty happens, disappears.

I revise, revise.

First snow flakes drift at sundown,

thickening towards nightfall.