Each one studies
a fabric unseen
from up close:
weaving of limbs
and what green
and such sky
and voices lulled
low. Each one
notes the other
along song-shaped
lines, discovers
sight-reading
is the closest we get
to love
if by love we mean
knowing when
to close our eyes.
Somewhere
nearby
my son
is pointing
at the moon
saying
ball, ball, ball
until eyes
close and
and
and I look:
The boy in the cedar tree sees the pattern left on the lawn by mowing, sees, for the first time, how narrow is the stretch of life between house and sidewalk, sees the robin looking up, as he himself looks up each day to gauge weather or wind, as we now look at them, boy above, bird below, and above them both, I’ll put it there now, a ball.
We incline from line
to line, from room
to room
but in truth there is
no word.
Each move, an offering
of might
against might, but
what with robin
boy and toddler
this I
is outnumbered.
The street
blurs to life,
a passing car,
robin hops
to garden wall.
It’s all I can do
to keep boy
from falling
ball from rolling
into a ditch.
And then – see
how the sounds
insert themselves
even on days
when it isn’t
about them – it becomes
clear it all
must end
in a kind
of wordlessness.
To close
your eyes
at the wrong time
can be murder,
but at the right
time, ah…