Small Weathers

The first of dawn. The silver rain from hours ago
still tipping off the lowest leaves—

and along the sky’s edge at the grass line, a pink light
foxing now, running to new shadows—

                                                              amplitude,
discarding beauty and death as unequal to the moment—





With sandpaper and caulk we’d worked the bad wall.
A putty knife, then smaller, a Q-tip—

                                                           but not until
she put a finger to it, smoothing there, daubing,
was our work right. An invisible finish.

—but whorls of her fingerprint, where she’d touched me,

and the tree of veins trembles—





Inside, outside. The wind, the little waters, coating
the thin fabric of each blade shining there.

Is it the wind that shakes inside me, too?—
I should know. Weeks or a day. Watching the quiver

in my hands.
                      Wind where the chimes will be

Beautiful in a passing way—





All those years I couldn’t tell sorrow from sleeplessness.
Pain from illness ...

                               Listen. Now it’s 3 am
and someone thinks enough of this life

to sing, out there, in the far field, a few minutes more. Listen,

a little longer.
                      —the birds starting to sleep, their songs
becoming silent, then their silence—





This morning in the city, the huff of a bus,
couriers on motor bikes and now, tonight,

at home in the quiet village of stars, the wordless
vespers of a far catbird—

                                       magnitude, he said at
the end, for which we should give thanks—