Just the background hum

of summer insects in the ear

keeps me from drifting

off. Swans silently

animate the water’s edge

as evening falls.

I’m here as witness

to what goes on without me

making sense of it.

For Shannon Giglietti

Last day-light ripples

through yellow spartina grass

that edges the bay.

Behind me the park

empties as people make long

shadows going home.

Swans noiselessly plunge

into the shallows; moons rise

from the shattering.

Clouds amorphously

name to perfection what’s not

about to happen.

Space collapses in

infinitely small shreds, light

over dark water.

Windows fly open,

doors slam in the faces of

darkness and others.

A temper tantrum

over in no time, no place,

witnessing nothing.

Across the summer

the dogs of the big houses

bark into the dusk.

I see the lights go

on one by one. Old houses.

The water survives

the summer people.

Across the darkling Bay raw

voices deepen night.

Over me jets fly

Outbound from T F Green and

summer doves still go

coo coo waves lap lap

as the planes keep going gone

the waves go lap lap

the sounds of summer

O O and later at night

the stars roar and roar

The grass grows higher

over the childrens’ voices

as dusk settles. They

resist the nightfall,

hide from their elders and lend

clarity to night.

Some of these voices

take on the darkness, command

others to go home.

I rise and look out

on the churning dark, no place

to wait for the moon.

Half-way through it rained.

I had left bareheaded and

began to see why.

My hair dripping, I

joined the community: parched

roots of bleached hydrangea,

pale blue by the road,

and how whiffs of coming rain

made us more loving.

Carillons over

land and water, the people’s

book, known by heart, tunes,

gaps for all weathers.

I walk straight into them and

through on my way down

to the public space

where the low waves lap and lap

between tall grasses.

Here egrets come to

dance and give voice to desire

as we also would.