It’s after eight in the evening,
and in this antique light,
the Queen Anne’s Lace along the roads
watches the sinking sun –
hundreds of tatted blooms
close up like praying hands,
like thousands of empty teacups drained
and set upon the sideboard of the day.
In the morning they’ll open again
to catch the the brewing day,
the sun steeping over
the edge of Lake Michigan.
But that is all to come,
and nothing is guaranteed,
least of all tomorrow morning, and
so I ride on.
Tonight, it is still warm as I pedal past
the green-risen pastures
spread unevenly with buttered light,
the shadowed cemetery with tombstones
like stale biscuits rising from the earth,
the Beagle club
where old men sit in lawn chairs
in the driveway and wave to me,
and the beagles throw their heads back
and howl.
Tonight, I am
that empty, weathered barn
leaning toward the road,
full to bursting of the last
of the honeyed light
that seeps through the gaps,
I am filled up
with the space
that useful things have left behind,
my wooden bones echoing
with the far-off sound
of barking dogs.
I have said my prayers,
I have again and again
drained my cup
and if it is not filled again,
if the sun does not rise for me,
I can only open what is shut, I can only
come crashing down
and
let loose the light.
Halfway North 