YOU KNOW WHY


You know why
we are both here
standing in the same line
wanting the same latte
as your lips tremble
in the shadowy corner
of the bright coffee cafe
with a last cheese croissant
on the chess table
this ruddy February
at 8 o'clock in the morning
the sun coming through
landing on a Picasso print
near the warming kitchen
a woman in a beaver fur
is asking me to help her
on the double
after seeing my car trouble
by barely clearing myself
out with a shovel
I'm offering to pull her out
of the bicycle lane
with her yellow French car door
caught in the grass thickets
of the fallen Evergreen
next to a fellow bachelor
who is lost as if a dream
in a weekend snow's ravine,
a few boys are daring to throw
snow balls our way
I'm wanting
to strain my neck
at the white windows
to see two eagles
by upper deck shadows
with a nest of a bedded secret
at a future day,
we're taking in the mountain air
up here in Vermont
to cross country ski
bright and early
at first light
on the fairly snowy slopes
feeling as an exile
on the high ledges
smiling with a hope
with the weight of a gesture
that my identity be renewed,
I'm reciting a Valery poem
in the recesses of my being
at nature's itinerant soul
whom he expects to empower
over February's first light
reviewed with a poet's business
as he reveals a happening
of blessing us with his insight
with an open country feeling.