Once There Were Other Ways

Don't mention cigarettes. Blowsy clouds floating over the far Adirondacks, my heart signaling to itself the conditions of peace.

Buttercups, nasturtiums, morning glories. Half the apple tree falls, we cut part of it up but most we leave where it is.

The cosmos allows you to make arguments both for and against it: what are we really saying then about conflict? Existence is a burden, it is clear now.

Settling the bill, preparing to go. We roast a couple chickens, eat them with salad and bread, all of us in the kitchen arguing whether human beings can form a meaningful model of what it's like to be a wasp.

Misreading the cues again, is there any other way? Summer nights given to crickets, distant stars, the river endlessly flowing away.

She informs me of her hidden rationale for agreeing to plant Hubbard squashes and it makes me smile. Coffee in Adams on Sunday morning, followed by a long walk up the  Ashuwillticook trail.

There is always a story about longing, isn't there? Hands reaching out of the earth as if to say that something in burial is backwards, or at least misconstrued.

Tall grass grazing our shins. While to the north, Greylock rises like a stony orca.

Dreams in which everything is settled, we all go our ways, end up in the arms of the lover who is most helpful. How once there were other ways of saying it.

I sleep on the floor, better for my back, but something in me wonders if there's a better way even than that. By the river green rushes, sky-blue forget-me-nots in the shadows.