with gratitude to Sappho (for the first line)
You know the place: then
leave the road and come to us
waiting where the fields
are grieving, in the grasses
Dear to you; a weaving
is spread over the trunk of the
fallen oak; the creek
sings through plum branches;
eucalyptus shades the damp
earth; curls of its silver dream
the cry of a vireo; in meadows
where foxes have grown plump by
golden poppies, the scent of
bay awakens the old one’s bones.
Grandmother, hold our hurried hearts in
your body’s rhythms,
Deep and slow.