i empathize
when you discover
through a failing
or disease the limits
our animal self
constrains our hearts
and our many thoughts
   to small
self-entitled circles
since to heal we need
containment, swaddled
in a reflecting pool
we make of ourselves
until we might return
a new beast, slowly
rising from the belly
out onward once again
   to the wider
   sunlit sea

2 young brothers
running the same
dirt road i ran
so many times
growing up between
the towering trees
shaping the course
long ahead and back
out to the road
where the Real world
   connects
   some day
to be traveled out
and forever changed
hopefully: with here
still pine-rooted
deep under heart's
memory of the place
to simply exist
and nature to grow

every fall
i return
where lessons
first learned
of honor, good
struggle to be
free of power
and the heart
deep as trees
first heard
leaves sing

a deer who ate
my crabapples
today caught
by the camera
his left rear leg
immobile almost
dangling from his hip
hopped and stopped
then looked around
as if something else
would do him in
and i kept trying
to think of ways
i could help
but i couldn't
except to call
Authorities 
when they open
monday
i kept imagining
i would find him
lying on a path
unable to move
or hear him crying
in the distance tonight
when it's time
to sleep as he lingers
in life immobile in pain
until he mercifully dies

a young man
looking intently
asked me if he
could move in
with all his
contributing
assets which
surprised me
and all i
said is there
is nothing
for you here
even though
it was a lie
and he smiled
saying nice
to meet you

the opossum has no idea
i've been scheming
to steal away his home
in the engine of dad's old car
where he escapes the cats
prowling through the night
as he prowls for mice too
and as the rabbits vie
for the undercarriage hoses
like a makeshift safe house
they've finally tipped me over
past the sentiment of being dad's
to the reality of reality
predators and rodents and bugs
and me: the soon harmonious
imposition of my ideas instead