Your stop for the annual poetry fic challenge!

from Spring Plowing

They keep their lanterns covered.

from november 18

each watching from darkness
this man with the moon on a leash.

from november 9

The sky hangs thin and wet on its clothesline.

from Dishwater

a glorious rainbow
with an empty dishpan swinging at one end.

from Four Civil War Paintings by Winslow Homer

Some part of art is the art
of waiting

from Sparklers

I could hear
your heart, I think, and feel your breath
against the darkness

from Nocturne

a thing of dust and starlight,
scarcely stirring.

from Mother

Were it not for the way you taught me to look
at the world, to see the life at play in everything,
I would have to be lonely forever.

from A Man's Voice

that wind remembers their names.

from At the County Museum

And on the board bench where dozens of drivers
jounced year into year, clicking their tongues,

is a black plush cushion that for each, for a time,
helped to soften the nearness of death.