At work in the upper field,
hay tops little buddhas,
Calming the meadow and all its attendant tributaries,
Porcupine, Basin Creek and God's blue hand like a skillet lid
Pressing us down to infinity—
We thought it was up, but it turns out it's down, Jack, down.
Either way we're stuck in the middle,
not a bad place to be.
Later, sun like a struck medallion
Over the west edge of things,
the distance between the woods and water
Immeasurable, tree shadow on water shadow.
I'm here and not here,
above and under it all.
These thoughts begin where words end
Back in the timber, back in the sullen nowhere of everything.
I think I'll take a little time off
And fiddle the underbugs,
Sitting my absence,
dusk growing larger and larger.
This is the story of our lives, a short story, a page or a page-and-a-half.
Eight days after the summer solstice,
Hard frost this morning,
my life just past my fingertips, drifting, drifting.