now I'm living in a distant town
with mountains and rivers keeping us apart
the Tao doesn't come with many burdens
until the memories pile up on this day..." – Wei Ting, "In My Prefecture Quarters Affected by Autumn: To My Cousins"
"...that turned in the other had been carved long before in the form
of a fox lying nose in tail seeming to be
asleep the features worn almost away..." – Merwin, "Fox Sleep"
Another Sunday Morning
Out in the valleys along the city highway
the churches this sunday are still filling their lots
matched inside the hollow nooks of the iron
bluffs still tangled in late March by the leafless
black trees we speak of the good word still
of those who can tell us that the world is not
lost but it is the ridge lines the fine deep carpeting
of the sleeping golf course that is the church
this time and we plan on our run along the marshland
trail and over the old creek bridges to watch
for the waterfowl and learn the patterns in the dried
mud of all the passers-by just when a low flying
eagle passes just overhead just forty feet high
and circles only once over the steady beaver dam
tucked inside the clefts and the stacks of water
sedges wondering where the ripples part the water
just down below where the geese slide to protection
and where a single buffle head like a royal
like a stroke of precise direction tugs itself
in shallow lurches under one of the old railroad
bridges and here we must hear something
of a sigh in between the dedications and sermons
of all these falling words of mind to mind
until the pair of cranes built like inspecting
farmers walk along in front of us the knees tight
the beak tucked down to terms and not a love
of us no mention of who gets the next lesson
and we wonder where the center of the times
have gone and turn to run never to hide again
