Now This

These other things now.
What I mean, just to find
rabbit tracks in the snow
when I walk for the mail.
Or hear the flat cough
of a raven. The times

pileateds pass and
in the fall, raptors.
And once, I'll remember,
a howl split the night
as I stood in the yard
cradling firewood.

What I mean, compared
to those far city rooms,
cafes and bars and
afterhours places, we
haunted for years, smoked
Kools, changed the world.

Now this, for me, a dog
smells of woodsmoke
and deer to the lick if
I'm patient. What I mean,
we changed, not so much
the world as our lives.

(1991)