Reading Andrew Marvell

Forget parallel lines that never meet

when every surface is flat. Recall the

summer our daughter learned to swim

at Lake Dutchess, dogpaddling to the float.

I cut our first lawn while tottering on the

riding mower, going round and round.

Paradise like that. Repetitive. Look at

the perfectly tapered wren fly up into the live

oak tangled in Spanish moss and listen to its

small song. It rains and we go inside, towel

off, we make love, something sputtering to life,

that noise like a wheel wobbling on the mower

I steered up and down the yard I had just

scythed clear of wild carrot, wild mustard.

Here the souls of things struggle into their sheaths,

grow tinsel wings, flutter upward to sit and stare,

the lagoon’s shimmer in apposition to the stars.