The day as nudging, as a nudging-stick, bark-stripped
and made to rattle across the storm drain grate,
hit the horse apples down, scrape along the sidewalk
and come, suddenly, to the deep crack, trace the crack
to its end, and the next, as if the cracks were a river,
a little portaging. There was no reason, no reason
to have a reason, and there was the creek that ran
over rocks for no reason, and the day opened
and closed like an eye to the ebb and flow of us into
and out of yards. I give her the name Sharon,
—not in the adult way involving exchange
of information, but of moving alongside of,
poking beetles to see if they move, the crouching.
Tragedy, then, more like a shadow, not
the dead baby robin in its half-embryonic whiteness,
not anything precise and possible to reach with the stick,
but huge and uncontrollable, parental. I want
to poke with the stick so that the hugeness will remain
in the upper atmosphere, not here where I am crouched.
What is the material at hand? The mink ate the baby ducks,
John Pixler killed the skunk and the raccoon. Light hangs
in the air after the rain. A man in Springboro, Ohio,
caught the record longnose gar weighing 14.72 pounds.
Did I mention that little glistenings have formed on the lake?
The terrible noises in the upper atmosphere are quieter
when I look into the microscope. There was all that
outside my bedroom door, and inside were the poems.