Integer Vitae
The beautiful gray dog
loping across the lawn
all afternoon for the sheer
joy of summertime,
bees at their balm, the dragonfly
asleep on a raspberry leaf--
that’s how we’d live
if living were enough:
innocent, single-hearted
like the mourning dove who’s called
his mate in the cool dawn
from one pine for a thousand years.
These do not wake in tears
nor does deception drive them
down to the blue pond
where the beaver, prince
of chaos, who appeared
alone as if from nowhere,
is tirelessly constructing
his dark palace of many rooms.
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All of this reminds me of graduate school. Very much so.