Under The Weather

How I Wasted My Life

after James Wright

One leaf caught
In the fishing line that holds
The bird feeder high
Above a high-wired red squirrel’s reach.

Two webs in morning
Bright out the mudroom door.

Whiff of grass in the midst of
Mowing and cloud’s cover returned.

Rain: vertical, horizontal, three-dimensional, wet.

A white balloon and its lift
Past the window box geranium pink against
Blackening green, the leaves, such brood-gray light.

One more maple leaf caught in one more
Web spinning, spinning yet more crazy
Rain meets wind then
Hail falls,

All hail!
Late afternoon

After downpour,
Sun and the drops on the screen,
How they crystal, refract sublime.

All this becoming so late,
Too late?

Oh the everlasting now, both lie and
Only-ever truth—I am wandering
Home at dusk.

Under a vast sky, split.