from ShallCross

I’m sure there is a word

In English there is always a word

What is that low-flying short-winged bird

Your mother would know

Even if she can’t call up its name

They fly alone notwithstanding

They are abundant

But they fly only the breadth of a field

Traveling silently

It is early yet you said I’m going back to my study

A hand reaching toward your half-turned head

Pale sun filtering through the cloud floor

Passing over a tangle of tensions and angularities

A silver band suddenly visible in the grass

The perennials by the shed identifying

Themselves by vibration alone

The light discolored as candelabrum

From a preceding life your Junoesque

Hand turning the handle to a door carved

From a Tree of Tomorrows

Don’t shut it I said We lack for nothing

Indissolubly connected

Across the lines of our lives

The once the now the then and again

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This poem also appears at the Academy of American Poets.