Lily of the valley

Mother robin

shuffles inside

the cedar branches

unbeknownst to me

on the side of the house

no one goes

except to mow 

fill the propane tank

or empty the septic

but I have come to fetch

lilies of the valley

squeezed against

that side of the house

hidden behind fanning ferns

and as I bend low to clip

one two three . . . fifty

slender lily stems

she screeches

to frighten me away

from her nest in the cedar

and I think too

from these flowers

so like eggs tumbling down

into their cave of ferns

so sweet and almost safe

from my hands

Visiting Chicago in May

The surface of the city

is peeled back in spring

the same as in the country. The same

tulip heads ripple from cavernous

troughs of stone

on the balcony above

a museum garden

shaded by low hanging trees

Where sunlight drops in pools

on straight beds of spring bulbs

flowering blue, pink, yellow and

weeded by two jovial gardeners

with surgical tools

next to loungers on the lawn

Inside the museum each gallery

is neatly hung and corralled

against the chaos

of the artists’ lives

While outside

on the street women open

like dancers at café tables, homeless

men hawking newspapers shout

in the vernacular

of a circus’s main event

Even the stoniest buildings

bounce with light,

with the impression of water

The last day of April

Green grass in unmown tufts,

root-bound daffodil spikes without blooms,

dandelion buttons, purple deadnettle

shawling the tomato bed, ground ivy

weeds big as couch doilies, mole tunnels

like varicose veins on the legs of the ground,

the whole uneven landscape bounding

in undisciplined exuberance

just hatched flies half-sized on the car,

unmoved when my daughter opens

the sunlit door on her way

to celebrate her thirty-second birthday

beautiful in a strapless dress with beaded belt

like American Indians made

that I remember

from camp in the wild north.

Like the one I made: tiny beads of red, blue,

yellow, green and black hooked with a needle,

organized there at the start of a life

utterly unconcerned with how it would turn out.

spring of his second year

It’s warm enough

and he opens and closes

the sliding screen door from the balcony

the first spring

he can use his right hand to slide it

then hook with left fingertips and close

the first spring rain

pressing lips against

looking in and gutterally “Bah!”

and giggle, the beginning

movement, the bare feet

puddled, shuffling side to side

over and over, back and forth, surprised,

complete, propelling, clicking closed

opening easy, how had he not before known

the momentum of the door

the smooth, intoxicating

possibility of hands