Postcard
for Winston Fuller
There is no absence of self in such poems. The whatness of the moment is always someone’s awed account of having been there. It is always a postcard from one soul to another.
The curtains float
from summer windows
as in a Wyeth painting
All the little mountains
dug up by moles
dollop the backyard
as do too many ripe apples
and the soup-ready mysteries
of stinging nettles
rendered delectable
by mere water.
The red foxes
and the hedgehogs
are shy by day
as I am by night:
we meet
only in dreams.
But last night
on the way home
well past my usual hour
I saw them both–
or was it a dream?–
and we congregated
by the light of the stars
and wished each other
sweet dreams, good night,
a world at rest.