Our field is the sky,
tilled by the sweat of motors,
in the face of night,

The gardeners gazing through their open shears
Or staring sightless from their wooden ladders
Stand helpless by and dream they cannot lower

Motion, motion.
Within the body cells
each nucleus rotates widdershins

The sun’ s suspended like a drop of amber
Above the crescent of a colonnade.
And he is standing on a gravel path

I sail into the crooked gloom
and steer to bed beneath the shining tent
of paint we are experimenting with

Because distance becomes tumescent in the heat
the haze erases buildings out of walking range.
We’ve considered walking as far as the backyard

Everyone else slept and we
were skinny-dipping in my mother’s pool
when the moon rose and birds

The writing of poems
and the living of life
seem to require

Alone in the house your father built
and you’ve always lived in, you walk with your cane
toward the door to the basement.

The great blue heron’s tinctured swerve
fires its yellow bill with the trout's alloy.
Why in place of nature cure