Negotiation

Chipmunks, squirrels collecting

bitternut hickory, chirping

against a small owl cruising

low beneath the trees.

Everyone has gone this morning

to school or work. Laundry rolling, 

carpets vacuumed, cleaning

in the bathroom on my knees.

I'd like to be Whitman, praising

the pure contralto, Wynton practicing

all day. But like my father dying

I cannot hear what I cannot see.

Locally there's politics, processing

points of view. Eventually coming

to a decision, building or not building

windmills on the sky, bridges in the sea.

Insignificant and mighty happenings

seem the same from my vantage ageing

gratefully, inexorably, planning

how to die in my own damn way.