walk with me

Soon we’ll walk by rows of cedars, white

with frost next to the ice-skimmed pond.  I’ll reach

for your hand as cold junipers droop

with heavy snow.  A lone cardinal will sit

on a birch, against the pale blue sky.

It will be morning, when shadows are long but snow

is bright against your hazel eyes, and as

we inhale frozen air, our breath-filled clouds

will dissipate and then

form again. 

In June, we’ll become botanists,

sketching wild blue phlox, johnsongrass,

geraniums, and garlic mustard within

our notebook pages.  We’ll clutter bedroom walls

with water-colored illustrations and notes

scribbled about colors pigments can’t

quite capture.  We’ll record the smallest parts—

trichomes, cold taproots, filaments,

and yellow anthers full of pollen grains.
Even the broken petals will be drawn.

Bastion

I walk tar-chipped roads past rotting logs

and thick, chokecherry groves to the field

by Miller’s Pond. 

     Within the green and blue

echoing world of cornstalks and sky, I’m lost. 

Lost, but certain that corn will end—sure

of stirring switchgrass, wild bergamot,

milkweed and prairie dock next to stone-stairs

that lead to tarnished steel. 

       My childhood

train-bridge looms, and once again I’m small,

looking skyward towards graffiti and rust.

I want the view to be the same: brick homes

missing shingles, sun-scorched corn, tracks

edged in brush, paint-peeled factories

and windswept oaks.

                                  Last time, I climbed this bridge

to say goodbye.  But now, planting my feet

on crumbled steel, I need both black and white—

both tar and Queen Anne’s Lace, timeworn brick
and cloudless sky, the rust beside new blooms.