yellow maples

yellow maples
the sun on yellow maples
yellow ceilings, yellow walls
mossy trunks leaning green
yellow and green
yellow leaves under the maples

stopping the car to look
into their yellow room

remiss

out walking past the bus stop
I could have said "good morning"
but I left everyone
continuing to frown

at the train window

another one of the thousands of days
same miracle of the light
usually behind house walls

with just a table between us
we watch the hills turn black,
the sun on the contrails die out,

"the moon can still see the sun" he said

how did I get so lucky
as to deserve you, my husband

coming through, blowing

a few squeaks, occasional lurches, steady rattle
smoke from the diesel engines wafting past the windows
slicing across fields, roads
startling the cows
rousing from the telephone wires
a bouncing ball of birds

in the observation car

the earth is stacked precariously here
the brown walls lean out
and the rocks have not finished falling
the sun shines on the towers standing all around the tracks
and we, so many pairs of eyes, look and look
we let our cameras get a good look too–we want to take
some of that astonishment home

The cat sits on the poem
I had meant to be insubstantial