—for Steve

I’ve been at this all morning, old friend, hands
in the chilly April dirt, sifting the thesaurus of loss,
its vast inadequacy, all those words that simply hold
their palms up, looking into your eyes—what else
can they do? Meanwhile, I’ve been tucking strawberry sets
into the tilt of the hill, where they’ll reach out stringy arms
to keep the soil from slumping. If there was a poem
I could write for you, it would use the clear song-notes
of the white-throated sparrow. If I could write that
poem, it would come forward slowly, hat in its hands.
My razor-blue pruning saw nicks off a budless branch,
winnowed by winter. Next, these tangled places, rampant
and strangling, where loppers can open airways,
respiration’s green breeze. If I could write you a poem,
its eyes would be wide and lucid, would see in detail
the stems and veins of love, its moving in and out,
its great knitting together.
Over the ragged brim of our woods,
two vultures circling, imperturbable. On the tall fence,
a terracotta Sun God's leering face, speckled with white.
If I could write that poem, it would say its piece
imperfectly, broken, wearing its short-comings
like everyday skin. In that poem, each line break
would re-break your heart, so that it could grow itself
into new muscle, strong for going on.
Sudden buzz—
a ruby-and-emerald hummer, and the vivid ghost
of your dizzy, tangle-headed boy, whirling
among stumps and bugs in a long-ago twilight.
If it could, the poem I’d write would lose itself
in loss, then find itself again, unexpectedly,
in the long green silences after the tears
have exhausted themselves, after the colors of the world
have begun to re-emerge, everywhere you look.

Scott Lowery is a poet, musician and retired educator, recently relocated to Milwaukee after almost 30 years in rural Minnesota. He has recent poems in Nimrod International Journal, River Styx, and Briar Cliff Review. Scott really enjoys working in classrooms with young writers; examples can be found at scottloweryblog.wordpress.com