Poems of Nature and Humankind

The clouds still differentiate the dark.
At nearly midnight, light they incubate
makes silver nightshade bloom between the stars.

The day I saw a jackrabbit is ending
for its only time, so I know more than when
these clouds were born a blown time ago.

Midnight: the porch hovers and we lean
in chairs, with glistening bottles, move our arms,
our mouths (but not to kiss, and not to speak).

The dog boxes a June bug with his shadow
like a fox. It’s Texas—now and then a star
will blaze a trail past here to where it goes,

a bird will summon Chuck Will’s widow
though she’ll never come, as I have called a ghost
who’s lost, who’s lost someone. There is no room

for that old desolation here. The house
is small, the pasture rough with things to find.
The night is kindly lit, and you are kind.

And what will happen is another day.
The rain-lily will spring beneath the wheel.
The flycatcher will poke its crested head

out of the martin house. I know the names,
and saw a scarlet wasp above the prickly pear.
I saw the place the star made when it fell.

I saw you say I love you to the dark,
and watched a fast shape dive into the light
of the rabbit-hole in Mexico, the moon.