Each morning I revisit
the impasse of time:

mountain bluebird,
fury of wasps

on an outside lamp. Life
as juncture, repetition, epiphany.

Two years before you died,
you wrote me a letter

about the secret world we shared,
word play, euphony.

How lucky I was,
you said,

capturing a place
that felt like Home.

I relived it for an afternoon
reading old letters and notebooks.

Today I summon the colors
of that time, twinge green, blue pang.

Frowsy yellow bees
animate the ponderosa pine

outside my window
and I see how it is:

a stealthy sting,
the plait of past and present

a reckoning and a pause,
love having the last word.