Wildflower

                                           ... winter / driving by the agora / wildflower on the radio
                                    
              ... I danced with you to that song / new year's eve nineteen seventy three
                                    
                                                                       ... a world you left long ago ... how is it you’re still here?

Dakota Farmhouse

                                                 ... dakota farmhouse

                                                                            ... hard clouds over wheat soft fields

                                                        ... summer holds its breath

Our Second Date

                                      ... on our second date / he showed me his tractor stored in his barn

               ... looking like it just crawled out of the dust bowl

                                                                            ... he knew the way to my heart





Photograph by Shaun Fisher

Sitting Bull At Dusk

                            ... we knew he wasn't buried there / we brought our offering anyway

       ... carved stone from the black hills

                                                       ... at dusk // up and down the river ............ strong hearts beating

Light Gathering

                     ... a bird flew against my window
      
                                                     ... cradled in my palm / he opened his beak ... drew his last breath

                               ... a small sound ... like light gathering

First Grade

                           ... first grade / his desk across from mine

                                                              ... inside a slender box of light / new pencils made of gold 

                                ... I knew what covet meant




The photograph is mine.

The Voyage

                      ... fifty three years into the voyage / still mapping their way past loneliness 

Red Winged Blackbird

           
                           ... and in the early morning hours 

                                                                            ... my mother came to me and said

             ... it will be okay dear girl
                                  
                                                ... the red winged blackbird has returned to the river

The Scent of Sunlight

                       ... bed sheets on the clothesline

                                                                 ... tonight I sleep with the scent of sunlight

                                        ... my mother on washday

                                                                                          ... the back porch when I was five