It was a hard winter for the old eskimo,
Sent out on an ice floe by those he loved
More than life, more than seal blubber,

I got off my plane in a strange country
And saw you standing in the airport
With a blind smile, your eyes like diamonds,

Despite the enormous evening sky
spreading over most of the canvas,
as moon no more

March is the start
of the incontinent season.
My father would have been

Though we’re pages apart this time,
just being in the same issue
is like being at a party together.

What there was was a spherical rock in sunlight:
the full moon—its light on the strange but known
place to the east—over our side of the river.

The bees came for their flowered blouses.
   “Oh! Oh! Can’t we wear them anyway?”
A visit with coffee, phrases and clauses—

The right movement of the right foot
on dirt under tree-green grass underfoot,
the right movement of the left foot:

If he could throw his arms around the sun
(who does not pull any punches, brother)
then he would be, at last, the rainbow, strung

Out where Lethe meets the sea, past the bend
in the long arm of water, where the waves
gesture casually at the beach, is rest.