All the leaves on the ground-
dried and curling,
browning now in process of decomposing.
The sun shines at the Japanese Maple-
(you taught me what these are)
this one yellow and warm
and sings soft songs as the wind passes through.
How many leaves will drop
between now and the time I see you again?
How many songs will the trees sing with wind
before I can hear your sweet songs again?
I’m headed south from Milwaukee
counting how many trees
are making room between us now,
watching long miles spread
from the way I heard you call me honey today,
from the way I caught you looking at me
this morning
I want to keep finding you with eyes like that
I want to keep looking
back at you
that way
too
We laid in the hammock after midnight
speaking through the moonlight.
You grazed my eyebrows and cheekbones
with the tip of your thumb.
I discovered the space on your neck where your beard stops
and skin turns soft.
The dogs were barking.
Everyone was asleep aside from Pat,
who kept coming out to offer us beer or boxed wine,
but we didn’t want any.
We belong in the space between trees
together.
Every little bud on all the trees are blooming today, opening like tiny teacups to hold the sun in, for the trees to slowly sip.
He brought me flowers from the little market today, red and green and plum, some yellow and I couldn’t help but think how they’d soon be dead, soon with leaves and petals dried and curling, and all the pines I saw across the hills, I couldn’t help but think of them dead, someday, too. When driving the canyon: a truck with a hundred trees, or so. I wanted to stop him, tell him to put them back.
Today two feet of snow
laying heavily over trees,
pines drooping with bulky branches,
snow sliding to their ends and cascading,
sudden and frequent.
Black walnut trees fractal
skyward and sideways,
willow vines draping like narrow chutes.
Sweet man of mine
drove me through
and down
mountain roads,
six something in the morning
worried for me to do it alone,
worried of ice, of sloppy streets
with too much winter
for me-
the roads plowed, of course, already,
melting already
from where the streets held sun
in yesterday’s spring.
There was a simple man,
he had a walking stick
and whistled through his beard,
he took off by foot
along a path so far forgotten.
He found a place where snowflakes smell the way that lilacs do
and in the spring the hills are green
and can be seen every direction you look.
Money grows from trees and pigs have wings
and the bees love to share their honey.
Walkways are made of trampolines
and roses are sweet as candy.
He never turned back down the old dirt track
where the darker past was lurking
because he found a place around the bend at the riverside
through the valley and then you stop
once you get to the top
where the sun is always smiling.
It’s a place where amethysts grow from the rocks,
the wind plays music wherever you walk.
Monkeys, too, play the mandolin
the bears play banjo with a grin.
The river is where the whiskey flows
and waterfalls are made of wine
the big oak trees never lose their leaves.
It’s around the bend at the riverside
through the valley and then you stop
once you get to the top
where the sun is always smiling.
The strawberries are big as fists
and there are gumball machines at every stream,
I assure you there are plenty.
Everyone shares their apples and pears
rides rainbow slides and takes go-kart rides
through the forests and into the sky.
You can touch the stars
and swing from the moon
act like a goon all you want,
everyone else goofs along.
There’s no such things as broken hearts,
everyone there is merry.
It’s around the bend at the riverside
through the valley and then you stop
once you get to the top
where the sun is always smiling.
Where the sun is always smiling,
the sun is always smiling.
We weren’t more than an hour or two from the foothills and already the mountains were nothing but small and jagged, somehow so far in the past. Clouds hung like gentle fire, like emberred logs charring and fading from sunset to the sun being set, the roads flattening quickly east. This was two long days ago, already.
Yesterday Joe and I sat by the river, the cracks of the bench filling with moss where the wood has gone soft from moisture. Geese sat at the shore not far from us, minding their business, driving their beaks through tail feathers to cleanse. The skies, gray, as the geese are, with subtle ripples in the clouds as though to mirror the narrow river beneath it.
Across from the river, two houses burn leaves from their yard in two smoldering piles, the skeletal trees in the forefront growing in distinction, as those behind dull to vanish in the smoke. From a distance at least, the smoke is white and down-like, swelling as it rolls uphill to meet windowpanes of rural houses and hidden streets. I listened to the moving water paddle at the underbelly of the river, that of which was frozen at the edges. And for a moment, I thought I wouldn’t mind it- to live here again, but maybe I’m wrong.
It rained through the night and in the morning skies were nothing but Illinois fog, trees standing as they did yesterday through the smoke by the river. I expect for rain, too today, and I wait.
The skies are much different here than what we had witnessed on the road, west. I almost forgot how filtered skies could be. When driving, we watched how constellations hung straight before us instead of overhead- the big dipper taking scoops from the flat fields of Nebraska. I couldn’t help but wonder if I would even recognize constellations, the patterns they hold, persistently, night after night, if I hadn’t learned of them when young or if they would simply be stars. At some point I wished for lightning storms in the distance for a sense of depth. It seemed I was on nothing but a long road of headlights and highway signs, and I suppose that’s all it ever is when driving through the night in Nebraska.
Foxes and Magnolias 