Long After the Music Ends

Geese passing at dusk, angling west, leaving me hungry. Cattails turn back and forth in the swamp, bodies swaying long after the music ends and the dance floor swept. Just how close are we when all is said and done? 

Dry leaves skating over pavement, bumping into amber bottles that remind me of men drinking beer in the 1970s. I who never name the uncles, as if protecting them from judgment. Touching the bottom, lingering.

Always all these references to goldenrod, my heart turning forever to flowers, the brighter the prettier, and the prettier the better. Oh determinism, you are such a stubborn and lonesome god! Imagine unhealable snake bites.

Imagine those shepherds long ago, star-gazing, surrounded by sheep, the idea of one God, a Father who art in Heaven, calcifying in their minds as if what they hoped was true was true. The future is everywhere. Craving cookbooks but not cooking.

They say the weather will be bad tomorrow, rainy and wet, and so I hurry through the mowing to get it all done, happy to have a day where I can sit in a rocker and read and write and go nowhere. Making coffee for each other, a metaphor for the vaster love which carries us ever higher, our shoulders trailing clouds of glory. Trade-offs, tariffs, topless monks and nuns.

Replanting ferns. Pausing at the last daisy of summer. Remember fishing when we were five, maybe six, storms coming but but staying on the rickety dike, hair blowing, determined to catch one of the big trout that everybody said stalked that pond.

Warm rye bread with tomatoes and onions, washing it down with cider, listening but not contributing to a conversation about abortion. I mean no more dreams, not even the dream of dreamlessness.