Your morning legs slip over the side of the bed
easy and feel like cool green shoots, spring bitter.
You taste the innocence—one that revisits you
late in life after all the swimming, the river,
the sea, the learning the names of new birds, flowers,
fresh troubles that toss in your dreams.
You are washed anew after burying a mother,
a father, two beautiful black dogs troubled and
unloved from shelters. But now in this new season
who will rescue you from the wider waters?
What kind of salvation will be meted out
with the coffee cup? Your legs are still strong
and take you along the banks of the brown river
curling around the field near your daughter’s
house where the sky is so big and wild coming
over the mountains, clouds smoking with the
charcoal of rain beginning to patter and the sun
drowning down in smoldering orange.
You breathe new breath because you can feel everything
now. It comes to you on the blackbird’s keen whistle,
the red slash on his wing, so sharp, so clear, announcing
I am here. You are here. Carry on, carry on.