June (And we’re past the solstice now)

when spiders start webbing up the paths

in the woods, and we’ve just gotten used

to the fattening day when the evening begins

to get slimmer and the light’s confused

about how exactly it should shine,

the pale blackberry yellow

of exposition, or the flat-blade gold

of a story’s end, the glow

of a coda’s familiar opening words.

And then there’s the birds: arrivals

and departures check the screen

in summer’s terminal

and while they wait they fill the fields

and the flowerheads looking for food.

Buntings are pilot lights in the wheat;

woodpeckers arming the woods

in the ground’s surprise: how could it be

this time already, how

did we get to these days without my knowing?

And what I ought to do now

is take notes or something, make a list

to help prepare me better

for next year’s turn, use language, I mean,

as a guide, a watchful letter

to myself. Oh no. This is sounding familiar.

Is that what I’ve been doing

here this whole long time, trying

to teach myself something

about myself or about myself

in the ambivalent world

around me? Is it a warning? All

my fancy talk, purled

and fringed with images and rhyme

and all that? I can’t read

my own code if that’s the case or even

validate my need

to document summer’s war against

itself and the aster’s winking

blueish eyes which close at night

in honor of our sinking.