To end the day with these geese
drifting through a band of sunlight
scattered like pennies
across the face of the pond
after waking up in Three Forks
to the quarter-notes of a distant crow
& the long drive home on back highways
& frontage roads – avoiding
at all costs the soul-numbing drone
of the Interstate

& then driving this dirt road northwest
of town until if fades like a song
into someone’s pasture while cows
& mule deer consider my passing
the way the gods would watch
a nameless star flare & fade leaving
no trace save a lingering tail of dust
dancing for a moment then settling back
into the primal emptiness

& finally leaning on the hood
of Buck Mulligan, a good pony of a Subaru,
watching these geese & listening to
meadowlarks trade stories with red-winged blackbirds
while shadows of late-afternoon insects
dance across the pages of this journal
& this beer tilts toward emptiness
which is where we’re all tilting toward –
if we’re lucky

The sun drops a notch lower
in the too-blue-to-believe sky &
the drop in temperature is immediate
The splatter of sunlight has shifted
from the far side of the pond to the near
& soon will pull itself from the water entirely
& I wonder: Will every Birthday Poem
from now on end up talking about death?

No matter. There’s another beer in the cooler,
another page in this journal & this
has been the most beautiful day I’ve had
in a long, long time.