Dear Edith

into the attic at the olson's
cushing, maine

cautious i'll look long

enough after the too brief  

rain to see it all break

out into its prism and arc

like it's bound

to, over the same going

to copper going

to bronze slightly less high

stand of cedars on my

corner of the lot.  and then

it's gone.  it's gone now

even as i write it to bring it

back even as i listen                                                      

to the insisting call of the boy 

cardinal opening

to his mate, or the wren congratulate

(it seems to me, seeing it

house-sitting) him or her

self coming in.  and now it's all gone

to water and fade

and i made it though taking

the three simple seed-

houses we hang each day

and take in each night

before dark to keep them

from the neighborhood

carnivores.  Or carnivore.  Bear. 

I've only seen the bent pole and the absent

feeder, found days and days

later unscathed, empty!

but hardly a dent

and the scent of its rub

on the oak sweet and almost

disagreeable.  it's not far

to the edge

of the property line but it does

mark us with rhododendron

and laurel and azalea

and scattered sweet

william and downed

in a winter wind one young enough

oak to make good

firewood or depending

on the care of the fall

a widow.  we've raised two

beds in the hugelkultur way

and made them careful

bearers of carrot and basil 

and tomato and pepper

and sentimental favorites of Jerusalem

artichoke.  coming into blossom

the young still-

in-velvet buck munched

them all, and too the peas

and so we'll need (next

year) aesthetic and deer

proof fencing.  he's pretty, and too

a doe and her new lamb, 

and the heron i often spot 

on the pond wading on and on                                                     

and once a caught! catfish! what! mauled! and

alive! swallowed!and bird-

walking on like nothing  

and a watersnake who must've just

unhinged his jaw and his docile domicile

to rub along the old ruins of the barometer

factory.  i kept

enough away but if my son

hadn't casually called me

to attend to it i'm sure i would've

stepped on it.  and lately,

in the calm,                    

it's waterlilies that seem two

of one self reflecting in the varietal 

beech shadows and commonly damp

mornings - humidity- dew- clouds- fog

obscuring the raged goose

and her crew from view.  the chicks

seem adultish now and poop

where i almost steeped on that water

-snake, and saw that great

heron take a moment to shake all that water

off its winds and open them

like a bus stop 

flasher! It's Amazing!

tomorrow i want to tell you

what living in an old house

has made of

me: to want to know 

more about Wyeth

and his work with Alvaro

and Christina and while they lived

in their own late 1700s house.