Thank You Letter to a Best Friend

all you had to do
was say Go outside
and introduce yourself
over and over again

until I could not separate
my love from the trees

this is how I knew you, the
world, and one day, like geese
you had to go.

some never return
in the spring
At least not the same way, I’m sure
you’d say to me.

for two years, I’ve
been going back
to the put-ins, watching us paddle
away. I can only stand there
so long trying to separate
what was from what is

my eyes well up with tears
knowing this was the point: what you
were trying to teach me.

I hear wing beats out of nowhere.

Happy Thanksgiving

from my place to yours

rainy morning. I hear chickadees

one cedar waxing in a tangled crown of glossy black

limbs. a sculpture in the sky

while naming ferns
two birds, yellow breasts
arrows between branches
I could only hope for a sharper eyes

on the eve of The Hunter's Moon
hands warmed by the stove. the world was quiet

I've been here before . . .

but never like this.