First Day of Winter
Daylight has peeled pale bracelets
into the bark of the dogwood tree.
My daughter boards a flight to Buffalo
taking her children to their roots for the holidays.
Congress has just passed a bill giving tax cuts
to those who already hold the country’s wealth.
Squirrels scrounge for black walnuts
buried in the corpses of the daylilies.
Outside my window a woman waiting for a bus
paces the sidewalk talking to the sky.
On a highway in rural Mexico
a school bus somersaults killing ten children.
I stare into space after
words
that disappeared from sentence I was about to speak.
In Norwich 600 years ago Juliana held a hazelnut
containing everything
that has been made.
I will never make sense of this life.
