I Like the Sound of That

Sitting here, in the same chair I have sat in all year
I am barefoot again, like I was when I first came to you.
It is warm enough now to not wear anything, if I wanted.
I like this corner of the room the best.
There is a window onto our street
the cat likes to sit on the ledges and hurl his eyes at the pigeons.
We eat breakfast here in this corner every day,
after we struggle out of the knot our limbs tie—we sleep so close together.
It is like nothing else, how little space we occupy in our big bed.
It is how I sleep, how I've tried to sleep for years.
I have been thinking about it all year in this chair
in this corner
of our apartment.
Our apartment.
I like the sound of that.

With the Sun Caught in a Net of Pines

With the sun caught in a net of pines
dusk released like an aroma
calming the mountain pond we dangled our toes in.
All around us, arms of green mountains caressing
and the blips and blops of trout
rising to gulp in the mayflies of early summer.

This is a real place.
I was consumed by that,
awed by that.
There, trees leaned on each other like calligraphy against the horizon's light.
Here, tadpoles swished their feathery tails, huge and swelling into full frogs.
We, barefoot, lying on a moss covered rock.

We will grow asparagus in patches around our big country yard
push spades into mountain earth
make mounds and trenches and rows of growing things.
We will grow.
We will grow into anything we want to become—into a family, into a life,
into whatever it is that happens to us
when our breath has passed and the light has stopped.

Talking between silences, we find silence is our muse,
the quiet time that two people can have.
It is what we use all our words for when it is gone.
It is what we need only to close our lips to have.

In Vermont

We're thinking, let's get out there
to the exotic north of Vermont.
We picture driving along European-style roads
past wood-fenced fields of plump sheep
sneaking through green mountains full of bushy Vermont trees.
What a state of mystery
everyone knows nothing about what is there
in that deep chest of mountains and lakes.
Maybe some hemp-clad young man
tending to his bee hives
will invite us in to his yurt,
offer us fresh goat milk
and rub our feet with organic rejuvenating clay.
Likely, we will be charmed by the same stars we see at home,
kept safe in the same world
met with the same winds.
But in Vermont. In Vermont!