Two Poems
I.
With Black William
Half Lab and half Golden Retriever, at the percolation ponds
He is learning he likes the water and stands in it
up to his chest, snaps three times at the midges, then
erupts up the bank in a great larruping horsey gallop
surrounded for a moment by a fine thin silvery screen
of water curved like the battle shields of the Assyrians.
II.
sunlight sifts through the gray morning clouds and slides
across the water when it reaches the shore it scampers up
the trees to meet itself coming down this happens
despite the inwardness of the man looking out the window,
despite the black of the universe surrounding all.