Playa del Coco, Costa Rica

It’s almost dawn and the usual half-miracles begin.
		Mary Oliver, Morning at Blackwater  

It begins—trees, 
prepared for bare-root bursts of song and dance 
shrug off their soil, 
sway harmoniously if the wind desires,
air-skimming solo artists, small ensembles
breeze-bend through rhythms, 
hot jazz it, or opt for paler blues;

or in motionless expectation
await the rooster’s territorial lament, 
earnest calls across roads and fence,
rhythmic cackle of cock-a-doodles doing
their best, standing their ground, 
shouting YES WE ARE HERE,
drowned out now and then by gringo dogs, 
their job description over-emphasized in stupid unison.

Tiko dogs stretch out anywhere. Slothful head-lifts 
acknowledge the presence of whomever and whatever. 
The drama ends there; gated canines’ hysterics replaced
by ecstatic squeals and screams of children immersed in soccer
silenced by local school bell revving up like an air raid siren. 
Through it all, cicadas throbbing against the atmosphere 
resemble thousands of tail-shaking rattlers
rather than the wing-rub of insect bodies dying for sex.

But there are mornings amid the commotion, 
the rush of early wake-up, 
howler monkeys begin a tree-top canon 
starting with low notes rising, 
an earnest momentum amplified. Resounding rasps 
and power notes fill the air for miles, low rolling, then staccato, 
answered with a slow swell of chorus, bass channels magnified 
across the vast expanse, they bellow in concert, then fall away; 
the whole recital a protest against the steady nonsense 
of dogs and roosters, their racket silenced only by rain.

Steve 1983-2012

3:00 pm, 
but our clock strikes one— 
to us, it’s our son Steve roaming the house.
I slip outside to read on the porch. 
He glides out too, 
all gangbusters, 
but in a ghostly fashion.

He talks to me outdoors more than in: 
sudden visits, message by dragonfly 
cardinal, lizard or snake. 
I respond drinking in memories, 
spitting out regrets.
Some days he insists on joy.
Some days I’m sure to find 
a point in time imploding in on itself
like the daily death of a star.

The years gain on us; 
sorrow turns sticky
then sour, 
back to sugar, 
abrasive grains scraping against life itself.

In our house, missing him is a gap 
we can’t fill with glue or grout. 
Every corner of our yard 
is a complex life sentence, 
compounded by pauses, 
apostrophes suspended on twigs 
spliced onto heart-shaped trees 
waving good-bye before undressing.

Every day is autumn— 
yellow and red bathed in blue, 
the lawn a funeral pyre ablaze. 
Tears fall like willow leaves.
His hand takes mine as when a boy.
He steadies me. I drown 
rather than burst into flame.