Gusts
bend the trees tonight
at each new onslaught
to endure
or not...

Dark now
by six
& my children
in distant cities
with lives of their own...

What to make
of the neighbour's cat
crouched under my feeder
or of the neighbour
shrugging "It's nature"?

 
 
 
 
 
Like a guernsey
in her summer cloud
of flies
I flick an ear
a tail at him sometimes

A water strider...
in this old canoe I glide
on a summer pond
among the reeds
afloat on clouds

In the cold shade
of office towers
a bus-stop stranger
with the eyes
of a man who knows