stop and start traffic —
the way we tried to build
rock dams in the creek

little kitten paws
don't belong on the table —
or so we tell him

(Barbara Chepaitis' 5 month-old Abyssian Merlin jumped up on the table pretty much continuously while we ate dinner.)

fallen leaves folding
giving up on dreams of sun
ready to be earth

(The last message before the rise of Meeting at Albany Friends, offered by an older woman who uses a wheelchair, included an element of show and tell… an older woman passes a desiccated and falling apart leaf around, recommending that everyone smell it to remember what fall smells like, and to notice that it now tends to fold open, like the pages of a book spine broken through reading.)

a hawk's white breast
as it sits facing the sun
neither of us looks away

Thursday mornings
I staff the reference desk —
more retirement dreams

in between protests
I drive the banned bookmobile —
retirement dreams

burying garlic
under a layer of earth —
we all need tucking in

tucked under our roof
we listen for the difference
between sleet and hail

sale of the season —
squirrels excitedly shoving
acorns in every hole