Even though I know it disappears,
I am compelled to follow mist
and walk across the morning town,
and watch clouds lift as the edge
of tree-lines harden. Like a dove
exploding from her cover,
power lines pursue wide paragraphs
but then dwindle, clarifying in flight
but coming to the last house and dunes.

This is how I write a poem for you.
I sit astride the highest drying bluffs
with my expanse of white thought
(as if I’d brought the sheets with me)
to look on the horizon’s fresh frown
and hear the waves’ gray melody
improvising on the ocean’s cello.

My theme might be the end—
where a vault door opens,
a slow vault after all to a room
in which your sudden hand within
stops a vase from falling.

What smart things to say to you,
O savior of a vase? What odd praise?
You are the lieutenant of a dove,
the good tourist of an old library,
rearranging my night thoughts
like all the morning newspapers
thrown already on every lawn
back toward the waking town
and then the simple breakfast.