Night moves

This week, a little mid-summer poem written near a lake in rural Wisconsin. What does it bring up for you?

I thought there were less lotus flowers this year,

but then realized that I had forgotten to look for them.

How much of my life is like that—

grieving a thing that was there the whole time

if only I’d laid eyes on it?

The trees are reflected in the water

even at night

and I want to know all of their names.

“Night Moves” fills the beach and I think of my brother

learning the language of our ancestors

using an app on his phone.

What a strange world we live in,

where everything is at your fingertips

and nothing under your feet.

Even one single firework would have been enough.

There are so many good things

that we have too much of

and so many broken things we tolerate,

leave unrepaired and unspoken,

for fear of the

foreign sensation of wholeness.

It is utterly bewildering to think

of how healed we could be

how tender

how astonished.

The heron flies over all of us and

I’m relieved I notice it’s flight.