What We Let Happen
We let the grass grow tall through the wire of the fence
until the leaning posts of cedar seem forgotten.
We let the breeze into the leaves of the forked white birch
then listen. They once reminded Bill of aspen leaves
on their branches by the second floor sleeping porch
at the lake house long ago, coaxing the children to sleep.
We let our own family dead hold to the maple’s trunk
in the shadow at the base of the branches where we
tap it for syrup every spring, filling the sticky buckets.
We let patches scuff beneath each of the seats of the
swing set, where each of the young girls stop themselves
then climb into the maple tree to sing their parts from
this year’s play. Within their joy they are like leaves.
Catching Rain
The lake begins at the foot of a long grass bank. At its edge
a wooden table, and placed upon the table’s edge a cup.
No one quite understands what will come after
the rainstorm, as the clouds pass. Perhaps satisfaction.
Remember the hills of olive trees we could watch from our
rooms in Spain. They would bring us only satisfaction.
Loosened from a hidden place—beneath a stone, in clumped soil
knocked from a spade—the very first seed is satisfaction.
As is usual with children, wanting just a drop of pure rain,
as the storm began the boy put out his cup.