Both Ways Finishing

The tribe of those who cannot sleep, the hand-carved drums they beat through the night. Blue glass curved just so. Yet ask: for what is anyone waiting anymore? She sighs after, deeply, and a few minutes after that, rolls away a little and sleeps, a faint smile floating just above the blankets. Jewelweed after night rain is especially beautiful, especially against the northeast corner of the barn. Checking traps, both sad and anticipatory. Drinking coffee at 3 a.m. on the front porch, listening to rain on the maple trees and Main Street, shivering but happy. Matthew comes by to talk about the Vermont Castings Defiant circa 1975 which we aim to sell, unexpectedly expert. In a dream you look up and smile - your lips glisten, your chin glistens - and move your hand, wanting to meet my eyes - the light there, the gift there - both ways - finishing. A long walk before the sun rises to try and get clear on who it was those poems were for, the ones I wrote in 1992 and 93 leaving Vermont, which still intimate uncharted territory, mountain summits on which moonlight trembles. Sunlight clarifies and detoxifies and makes things grow. No I will not retire. At our fingertips, stars.