It arrives on a warm white cloud. It arrives on soft rolls of ocean waves along a sand pebbled shore. It arrives on a bed

Be still now with the Earth. Still with the Sun, the Land, Sea

However tender, and moist. The golden skin, supremely crisp. The stuffing,

What we belong to. What we can point to out there; around us. And what a singular gift. Our innate sentience.

After you uncork him and he appears in a serpentine of white smoke. Before he grants you

The Maine woods. The coastal woods. Where coming into Spring he resides, is at home. Where he keeps a fire burning

At precisely 9.25. When the moon, the first and most abundant one of the new year,

When the Moon moves between our Sun, Earth and up-raised eyes, through the long-held breath of our wisdom-keepers,

A sure sign of soon-coming Summer. Another sweet, salt-aired Summer.

Red lights flaring like Roman candles at empty intersections. Headlights wanding like blind men’s sticks

It’s an early Spring morning of bellsong and birdsong, sunsong

Who wore a green plastic visor the color of a ginger ale bottle. Who had a raspy voice and Charles Coburn kind of face. A forever bachelor

Of my family name. One day, 150 years ago. In a Castle Garden where Jenny

The only thing warm tonight in the deep winter sky ~ and soon to occlude. The Wolf Moon, Ice Moon, Old Moon.

Yes. And the rivers. The wind and the rain. The wildflowers. The marshes