posted Sunday, February 9, 2025
For M.
you ran to get me to show
the patterned lizard proud
on the rail puffing his orange throat
I had been buried
in the bones of an old book
it is good to see the lizard
lizard itself
it is better
that you came to get me
I remember I once told
the old woman
who was my first friend
a retired florist
(she often saw Jesus
at the altar and painted
faces made of smears
of all colors)
that the sunset
she wanted to show me
could wait
while I finished
my water color painting
she was quiet
and watched
the sky bloom without me
she knew she did not need
to tell me
I was wrong
heaven and time
would do it for her
brief golden impossible castles
folding into darkness
no less beautiful
when you call
I know now you invite me
to love you by sharing this world
this majesty of lizards
this porch light flickering
with moths with a thousand eyes
to announce the dead
this walk between
gate and door
our stroll through the belly of the sky
where each evening
we see the small hawk
dive precipitously
through the blue
toward what feeds it