Selections from a Commuter's Notebook

1. Mornings
when the first
cottonwood

seeds flurry down across
May
lawns and

gather at curbsides and
among the yellow
irises, mornings

like this--Night
forgot
to take in the moon,

it remains
a white stone
in the pool of the sky.


2. Morning
is what the starlings
discuss

as they pick at the chaff
of the newly
mown lawn, while

ambling dogs, grey
of muzzle, sniff
the weed beds

for news: summer,
dare we say it, becomes
general

and insistent
in this patch
of the world. God

cracks the knuckles
of his grass
stained hands.

3. The Lawn
of Rosehill
Cemetery already

gone flat
and golden though
it's not yet July--

In this encampment,
do you hear a murmured
conversation

from the pup tents of the dead?