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We blamed each other, fell to bickering.
Who was at fault? Who had lost paradise?
I was the first to fall, to open my eyes.
Back in the leaves I heard the tempter sing
Music of old rebellions, whispering
Soft seductive promises and lies
Buzzing around, Beelzebubs of flies.
I had lost Eden for a little thing.
What was the allure murmuring in the trees?
Why had the evil seemed as beautiful
As noxious flowers not yet gone to seed?
Here in the alchemy of sin, our fall
Made visible the midnight where the snake

(Linnaea borealis)

Who would guess, with your pair
of downcast, blousy blossoms

so close to your matted leaves,
that you are actually a shrub?

No hiding in these bushes.
But you bank the berm

of this irrigation ditch
in the forest, witness to water

hurrying from creek to orchard.
At least there are two of you,

every time—for each fork
in the channel, a second opinion.

                —Lake Chelan National Recreation Area

I wipe dust from your frame. Soon, colleagues stop by my office,
talk over your head. When they leave, I turn back

to you, notice the magnolia tree behind you is flowering

in this chilled building, in this old shot, in that moment
never again to be anticipated, with you smiling at me

in your felt fedora, knotted necktie, tan trench coat.

After you died, I covered you in glass, backed and shaped
your prints to protect you from the elements.

Old Walt called it God’s hand-
kerchief: green vistas everywhere.
Glistening mermaids singing of spring
in the mown river air.

A bouquet of chartreuse
for summer’s banquet,
stars and moon lilting across
hillsides, prairies, plains, and valleys.

How glorious if earth coursed
through lush pampas the year round,
but it must compass the dark seasons, too—
brown stubble beards
in November’s drizzle,
the prickly dismantling of fall.
And the icy comforters of winter
over a cramped crypt of stark seeds.

When I pray I go in, and close the door,
But what, really, do we mean by prayer?
Isn’t it anything done with full attention
Whether sinking into silent depths, or
Relishing a sun-ripe peach, or gazing
At the zinnias freshly picked this early
Morning, these multi-petaled shouts of joy,
Lemon yellow, orange, reds, a carnival of
Flame-filled light, the sweet green scent
Summer flowers.

You can smell the thaw coming before it does—
a long time, too, before the meadow is green
and the wildflowers emerge
yellow and shine in the green meadow.
When it is still grey and ice,
and seeds hold being unexpressed.

This is part of it too.
The growing, that is, and believing
that it means something.
That everything is sacrament. Even time,
which moves loosely and runs
according to the spirit—
that silent, grassy, generous spirit—as

I see spring arrive with a pale ghost behind her—
the tulips and flax flowers didn’t survive the last ax
of winter that came in March. Off with their heads,

into the compost with brown leaves from fall,
eggshells from today; wither, decay, and maybe
next season. The year he died, my father

didn’t make it to spring, he was gone before
crocus came up through the snow. I saw him
this morning, his eyes and smile peered back at me

Who would I be if I were empty?

a clear glass vase glittering the light
an open window bare to breeze and scent

a newly built nest hollowed in down
a white sheet of paper spread beneath the pen

a newborn’s eyes slowly widening
a freshly made bed, covers turned

a painted canoe tapping against the pier
a field in black folds, newly churned

an empty stone tomb awash with morning sun,
and the buried one within—gone missing.