Drinking It All In
a long way up Bray Road
past the point where the first of two small brooks cross beneath
it came to me in a new way that you and I are still breathing
four decades after we met at the threshold of the unknown,
the part that comes after now,
and here we are, still there, poised together
even though we were strangers when we met,
but now you’re my most intimate love
no one knows me better
the sun’s slant was perfect on our walk,
every particle or wave, not a thing wrong with it,
perfect the way it shone, the way it distended the shadows of things that stop light,
creating dark corollas, opaque space, the wild grid of leafless trees
spread across the road, or shadow patterns of lush foliage of a juniper blanket
on a bank fronting a long porch and the slope of Robert’s field heaving up behind
lifting stone walls on its back without a hint of sweat
but there were no cows today ambling down to lap the brook,
just us . .drinking it all in
Jim Culleny
11/9/21