I’m tempered on a moonlit night, walking slow,
full of more place than any kind of narrative.
Earlier in the day I watched the clouds embrace
the mountain tops covered with snow, white crests.
The mountains remind me everything is connected
to what is solid, what is familiar, in the middle
of so many memories and time lines, but I go out
less these days to avoid risks, combining car trips
to include all I need for a few days at a time.
During the day I walk more with my small dog,
pick lemons off a local tree in the winter sun,
and as we move along, of course, I imagine love
again in fuller times, safer times but maybe not,
maybe there is more to come of the viruses.
I listen to Ella Fitzgerald on the radio rhyming
a melody by Strauss with Mickey Mouse, sung
in the way love used to come to me, sophisticated,
a blend of the true and the easy and what rhymes
and what doesn’t, but now is different than any of this
as if the past has less to do with now than I imagine.
Now we have fiercer rhymes, heavy for a time
when closeness is at a premium, so much closeness
missed without what’s needed to light up the dark again
any way possible, full moonlight opening on a flower,
old dreams with the look of ones brand new.
