Four Seasons
2020-2021
Three owls hoot and answer
the last full moon
of a year of love and terror.
*
Heavy spring rain. No matter
who wraps them, my mother’s legs
keep weeping.
*
For the first time this summer,
I’m not wrong
when I hear the sound of water.
*
Wind in the branches, someone’s mother
calling, someone else’s childhood
skipping from yard to yard.
Disability
Time to get used to wearing
mortality
on my sleeve.
*
The needle, as always, goes in;
today, clouds
fill the syringe.
*
Sun on my face, twittering birds
and time
to notice them.
*
What a relief to see
how little this world
depends on me.
*
Leaves sidle down, feathers
from a bird of gold
who flies by letting go.
Mid-Summer
I stare at the trees that line my street
the way old sailors
stare at the sea.
*
Bird chirping,
thickening cloud, next-door neighbor
mowing.
*
One window full of leaves, the other
full of sky. Mid-July. Still time
to grow up before I die.
*
Tonight, for once,
I was paying attention
when the insects started singing.
*
Here I am,
trying to give up,
and you keep blossoming.
