May Soon

This is about the usual time of the hummingbird's arrival
and you haven't put out the feeder
and you don't know if  you will

Yesterday a mourning dove looked at you through the kitchen window
standing on the rim of a fetid, neglected, black-stained bird bath
half full of brown water and rotting leaves. When?

Don't know yet if I will this year, boys, you said remembering
the single male hummingbird who lived here all Spring and Summer without a mate.
She didn't make the trip for reasons of her own you guess.

This, all again.
You don't think you want to revisit and remember the
beauty or the pain or the long, long, quiet seasons thereafter

I've Had But Couldn't Keep

More or Less

Dig this disconnected feeling-
a somehow string of unrelated days

And nights, I am something left behind
or maybe something new

Each wake up, forgetting or
maybe becoming

Chance

At home again, fox in the front yard
surprised to find someone lives here,
not sure if this quiet I wake to at sunrise
is heavy or light, dark eyes, south Texas,
Muse, her colors, the curves of her lines.

Quiet, The Winter Harbor

Monroe, LA

The slight sweet scent of pink lemonade honeysuckle
in the shaded courtyard of a Louisiana psychiatric hospital.

I could stay here, rocking slowly, and just the scent
could put things right.

The river is cresting, her name is Ouachita.
Locals here pronounce it "Wash-ee-taw".

She rolls smooth brown and gentle, hides her terrible power
behind fluttering false eyelashes and the sweetness of her smile

There's not enough time to know you,
but I am glad I met you