In a dream, I ask advice on raising children

and am told to bury them in the yard so they’ll ripen.

Every autumn

I’m impressed anew by the sheer inventiveness of death.

I dreamed I’d written a book about all my disguises.

When I woke up, it was true.

where that heron used to stand

a painting of a heron

A dream is like a small animal that disappears when you chase it

but will come back if you offer it food.

border terrier

this time I only merit
a brief sniff

It staggers me

to think that I owe my existence to the most athletic among a crowd of sperm cells.

jumping spider

pressed flat except for
its arc of eyes

dog sniffing

past the trailing arbutus—
coyote scat

This coiled resistance may become a spring—

the first arabesque of a new wild.

mountainside

echoing with tundra swans
a dead deer

Audubon walk

admiring a pheasant’s
dismembered foot