and the gut-laughter of my son

even the throat of road noise couldn’t clamor over,

and a mist held right at 6 a.m. across the ranchland

and the pines that don’t let it loose, grass waking

wet from a heaven that sometimes spares it,

and a fallen tree bothering the water at the surface,

sideways trunk a roadway for map turtles

who after sunning sink back beneath the mirror

where I found a man who harbors no ill will

to the mounds of ants and mole holes that speckle his yard,

who passes young poplars in pots to his neighbors,

and I felt a human hand on my own when asked how really

I was and before I gave a hollow reply

I paused and said the better word, and looking for the end

of the world I didn’t find it, so taken by the way it held

my gaze, so taken by what it placed in my palm.