We Keep an Eye Out
"In every
direction, in every conceivable merciful convergence,
the heart pounds like someone waiting for the alarm to go off,
whetting our appetite for the congregation, the happy twirling
like the spinning of a yarn.
Memory is the gift you get for living.
Dreams are the seeds you plant, saving the future
like a first grade concert in the park.
How many
breaths scatter across the hills,
how many landslides shortly after noon?
Can we hear the forgotten refrain,
can we see the genesis of creation imbued
with atomic fondness for the divine?
We talk while our joy is unescapable,
our song is an opening along the horizon of
everything, including moonlight, sunshine,
and stars late in the deep night. We can
name a few, along with the planets too.
We thought the lyrics were only English
with a smattering of Spanish. We thought the
words were enough to get us through the day.
We count
the background; we gaze toward the sky.
We watch the sanity of uncertainty land like a dove
upon the boughs of cherry trees adorned by
fruit this late in the summer. We cannot wait to
carry them full-handed into the pail we have
used for a decade now and offered at least half
to the children who live next door.
We share it, also, with the deer that amble
through the inhabited cedars shortly after the
sun goes down.
We keep an
eye out for the next doe and maybe a fawn;
we keep ourselves busy awaiting the next whistle the
sparrows sing. They are sonnets that surround the day.
