Sometimes the blue sky threatens,
the lilac conceals some danger.
But it passes like a cougar
stalking among the boulders
and deciding mysteriously
to move on. You don’t know,
but something you did
or didn’t do, saved your life.
And what might have happened
had you turned your back
on this sunset, this rotting
fence post, this dandelion
dripping its yellow
into the cracks along the gutter?
Something seamlessly escapes
and you can’t follow. Sealed away
in the loam and marrow, its tracks
evaporate like water and like water,
when again it dashes a flirtatious spindrift
before you, it will mass, a cloud over trees
seeming fresh with such an allure
shading the street, an enticement
of flight and melody, it will play
in the mind like an etude, strength
to endure the long, beautiful devouring.
