If you come up the path through time’s   
protensity you’ll find me  

in this yellow November, a muddle of sun  
beside me on the ground. I’ll be lost  

in thought, unhappy with the common   
marigold’s heavy stink, dreaming of feathery things 

with berries. Come intently up the path   
through extensities of space. 

Tough zinnias come up & find me. Why not you?  
They are loud flowers that bear witness 

to past waterings by blooming   
through drought. I’ll be thinking I must  

become something that thrives   
in dry weather. Come calmly up the path.  

Be so present even eyes dimmed by bitters   
can track you into the pastel asters.  

Don’t make me wait. I’ll be fidgeting   
with the unrest brought on by fatal weather.  

What will become of us? I think  
our attributes will be engraved inside a promise  

ring in a script too small to read.   
Come quietly and be undimmed.  

When I see you, my eyes will fill   
with “really?” I’ll stand there 

trying to decide if you are cool enough   
to make any trace of warmth  

seem welcome or warm enough   
to make any residue of cold  

negotiable. I’ll say if you’ve come   
to tell me you’re going, please go.

I do not know the ocean’s song, 
    Or what the brooklets say; 
At eve I sit and listen long, 
    I cannot learn their lay. 
But as I linger by the sea, 
    And that sweet song comes unto me, 
It seems, my love, it sings of thee.

I do not know why poppies grow, 
    Amid the wheat and rye, 
The lilies bloom as white as snow, 
    I cannot tell you why. 
But all the flowers of the spring, 
    The bees that hum, the birds that sing, 
A thought of you they seem to bring.

I cannot tell why silvery Mars, 
    Moves through the heav’ns at night; 
I cannot tell you why the stars, 
    Adorn the vault with light. 
But what sublimity I see, 
    Upon the mount, the hill, the lea, 
It brings, my love, a thought of thee.

I do not know what in your eyes, 
    That caused my heart to glow, 
And why my spirit longs and cries, 
    I vow, I do not know. 
But when you first came in my sight, 
    My slumbering soul awoke in light, 
And since the day I’ve known no night.