A hot afternoon.

I slouch on the bench to hear

the croak of egrets

from deep in the grass

beyond the water’s distance.

They take short hops, wings

spread, and settle back

below the horizon. I’m

nothing but witness.

Clouds gather over

the bay. The wind rises. Wings

flash between islands

of green and yellow

spartina grass. In my sleep

truculent voices

pass between islands.

Who invited me here with

the best intentions?

A breeze off the bay.

It’s that kind of summer day.

Upwind a boombox

overwhelms the screams

of children with cool reggae.

My hat blows away.

It’s that sort of day.

One of the children reaches

out to me: “Your hat!”

A dull cloudy June

day. The photographer works

with the wedding guests.

He says smile; they smile.

The wind picks up, loosened hair

steals the attention.

blowing into eyes,

producing laughter. That’s the

shot! Hilarity!

Life can go on now.

The party breaks up, I stay

to compose myself.

Nantucket Reds. Long

before I loved you you lived

there, your Southern skin

pale next to local

lovers from the kitchens. You

were popular, old-

er. You told such stories! Then,

the sun went down. Late,

I wear them now, fad-

ed, broken-in, well-preserved,

as we were, and are.

Work-in-progress

Some sixty years woo-

ing the muses in desert,

moutain, and ocean

spaces. A short walk

or long, they tag along, in-

spect bushes, ruts, signs—

the lives of others.

Now I wander off, they sleep,

and bark when I’m home.

Being there’s never

enough. Future and past draw

on the pure present.

You are not here. Sit

down on this old bench with me

as darkness falls. Hymns

from Trinity’s bells

rise into the broken clouds.

I watch the light dim.

You are up north. Maine,

an old house, windows golden

in the sea-washed air.

Clover in the grass,

shrill piping in the dark oaks

edging the water—

a peaceful village

once the scene of genocide.

The clover, the birds,

the Trinity bells on

the hour, on the half hour, re-

mind us otherwise.

Distance is needed to bring intimacy home to its own strangeness to itself. Desmond, IU, 76.

Juneteenth. We proclaim

the freedom of blacks to be

what God made them to

be. Repeat. I walk

it off. Gulls cry, distance

sharpens awareness.

Intimacy comes

vivid as a kiss or curse.

Sun burns through the fog.

We live with love as if we knew what it was about. But as soon as we try to define it, or at least approach it with concepts, it draws away from us. . Jean-Luc Marion, Prolegomena to Charity

To begin to,

To begin to say “I love you,”

Let it grow,

Let it grow.

A squirrel leaps

From spring-loaded branch

To branch,

In silence leaps

And disappears.

In the distance,

Love grows. Between

Now and then love

Disappears.

Love comes back,

It comes back

In the distant look

On your foolish face.

There’s always Charity.

It always returns

In the look of others

You don’t recognize

As love’s renewal.