He has a million fleeting thoughts
without a reason to recall them.
Across the countryside, the far-fetched sound of cattle lowing.
Conspirators, he thinks,
you can have it, not noticing this smallest leaf.
*
In a rowboat,
one’s living loses its exactness, finds inlets, offshoots.
If I’d wanted to be triumphant, I would have chosen other work.
You say beyond—
I say one more time across the creek’s five stepping stones.
*
The uncomplicated nature of grace sends the mind reeling.
A favored view’s endangered
for all the years it stays intact.
Assembling years of details won’t make the self
an open meadow.
*
Only a few times one gets to see
that yellow bird from tree to wholly gone.