spark

He loved debating the fingerprints
of grammar in a non-existent language

she tenaciously calculated the cream content
of the milky way

living their lives in such a constellation,
precision had become the thing,
the lighthouse on a forgotten trade route
still tended for the sake
of the warm yellow beacon.

old labrador trots the sandy spits
of time's peninsula, placing her
deft paws swiftly without vanity.

passing later, we chart the routes
of next season's birds in the
feathery sky.
it's the proposition
of hypothetical dreams
that we lost in the fire,
saving instead an old cast iron pan
a twist of replaceable driftwood
a few books of obscure poetry.

a line of leggy oaks
holds it together in the partisan gusts
of felicitous January.
they make a torn edge of the sky samples
in their aging arms - slate, gunmetal,
the other aching pieces of bright gray.
a burnt out house, stiff beach grass,
salty contentment deposited by each shallow wave -
I can't even note all the miracles anymore.