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.