Each day she is up at dawn to mend the sun.
Quickly she stitches woolly light to the sky
before the morning cools too much.
With a song she rouses the grass
and tickles the flowers in their beds
until they giggle into bloom.
The bugs adore her, the deer and the fox bow down,
and from a distance Mars respects her luxuriant loving.
By noon she has fed the hills around our place
a moist leaf and loamy meal
and they romp gratefully with her on their backs.
In the afternoon while I reflect on the nature of things
she confides in a deceptively sad willow who is wise,
trusting her humus with his tangled roots.
By six she has bathed the stones
and the clouds have heard their story for the day.
At night she undresses the moon.
It’s slow light drifts along her rose thighs.
Tenderly she touches its rough old cheek
while the river waits for the splash of her swimming.
1975