My mind flits from place to place
this hot July morning as errands take me 
to the community garden and the library. 
 
Robins know the heat. They land on lattice
I built to grow beans as I spray cold water
on purple onions and pie pumpkin vines.
 
On the library steps a mother and her little girl marvel
as a blizzard-hatch of white moths float like ash
from Mt. St. Helens. I repeat a Zuni butterfly blessing
 
while thousands of miles away you wait
to be allowed to go home to your cabin
in the Oregon pines, under red flag evacuation 
 
from the fire torching the Crooked River 
grasslands. Driven out, you flee 
drifting sparks and shifting winds.  
 
At my home a postcard arrives – a marble angel
folds her off-white wings and carries a nail,
a spike as long as her torso. As night descends,
 
fireflies flare inside my woods, randomness
angels confront as truth – with uncertainties
of rejuvenation, crucifixion and conflagration.
                        

Starling murmurations twist fractals
of ribald sea waves, so roil these cyclones
of darkness against a patient moon. 
 
Vaux swifts spiral into a school chimney
where the new furnace gives the swifts
a safe September to spend the night by the tens
of thousands before they fly south. 
 
Twenty million bats pour from Bracken Cave.
Twenty million, minus ones that sicken. 
 
These numbers are the inverse of loss.
Fingerprints linked to dread.  
I never saw the passenger pigeon
or the free-range bison. 
 
I want 
numbers too big to count.
                        

As if trust is tangible,
each foothold on a rusting cup
 
As if today’s light snowfall
is all the world,
 
As if the mellow bell I ring
brings dinner to the table
 
the flocks
 
of chickadees, nuthatches, titmice
and cardinals wait near the window
 
as if trust is earned 
in caring day after day
 
for winter birds to sort, peck
toss seed, and chase each other.  
 
As if this is enough