A Small Book of Summer

part 2

A mandala of 
weeds whisks the blunt summer light 
in a cracked concrete 
field, where I rest my vision 
and wait for panic to pass. 

*

(in memoriam Fanny Howe)

No poet is gone 
for long—the poems breathe them
back as we breathe through 
the poems. Voice now outside
of time: neither yours nor mine.

*

In the window clouds 
convulse, blue to gray to black. 
Rain strafes haze drifting 
in from leftover forests 
primordial. Sidewalks steam.