A Miracle of Birches
and Other Songs

"When I was beginning to read I imagined
that bridges had something to do with birds..." – Merwin, from "Echoing Light"











On the Horizon Thanks


for an entire year after there was only
one image that loomed over me from the holiday that year
it was not of the granite tables of chipped black
or the sets of matching dishes the turkey
or the green beans that lingered there shining
in the slow roasting pot nor the people as it should be
but it was later on that night across the street
one lot left yet unbuilt upon jagged and still by original pines
that did not have Christmas lights on them
mere apparitions that added such bold strokes of dark green
mixed in as with a brush the billows of a deep frost
that had entered the valley above the golf course links
and like something of the supernatural took over
for the rest of the night the neighborhood houses
the lawns still furry early winter before the pure white
of a first snow had grasped its thousand strongholds
and for once there were no sounds for what comes
first we notice never makes sound but is that what is
and I felt at home for once in that day and gave thanks
and the horizon understood without asking
sending out its abundance by the cold song of river