We floated in sunshine.
Little fishies nipped our butts.

A hummingbird flashing blue
perched on your chest
as on a rose of Sharon.

You giggled.
Bird gone in a buzz.

You said God 
tweaked your nipple
and was calling.

Remove palettes of dock still slimy 
with summer, leaving only a stub.
With friends toast the beefy sunset 
from rare to well-done to salted with stars. 
Walk friends up the trail to cars, sidestep worried 
glances, say you’re fine, say goodbye.
Listen as loons unseen beseech, locate, 
gather their lovers. Be fine.

Awaken to half a gray moon in half a gray night.
Equinox. Fog. Half everything, dark.
Bury compost, burn burnables, drain the pipes.
Store the hummingbird feeder, all gone south.
Bike a final ride among hills once cleared 
as dairy pastures, now reborn as deep woods, 
maple to hemlock toppling old stone fences,
a century of second growth. 
Bike to the ancient farm where some 
stubborn fool god bless him or her 
hopefully him and her 
still clear their Adirondack acres. 
Wonder if the heart has second growth.

Return by bike to the stub. Strip, 
jump, gasp in bone-chill, swim briefly
as your privates shrink to peanut 
trying to re-enter your torso.
Dry yourself. Dress warmly.
Walk through a final inspection inside. 
Linger next to a little glass jug 
where she would leave wildflowers. 
Watch as a bumblebee yellow and black 
drops with a thump from the sky and crawls 
the windowsill with fuzzy grit 
seeking color, entry, warmth. Imagine 
on raggedy wings, you fly.

From the carrot patch rises a hawk
with the mottled coloring of youth, 
a freckled blossoming girl  
not yet in control of her beauty. 

She swoops directly 
to my eyes 
flashing her breast 
and then with a flap of wing 
seeming effortless 
she is rising in an updraft to soar, 
circling, and sees me far below,
a speck of gray hair,
and what force, I wonder, 
brought me to this garden, 
this light?