for Amy Clampitt

I grew my hair out
_       _ in a depression.  Let it knot
into a forum for the birds
_       _ in my thoughts, sparked
into actuality

in the wee dark.  What wills them
_       _ awake?  An early
sentry, then the rest
_       _ beckoning?  Coordinates rising
when stars in the lifting night
_       _ are falling.

_       _ Letting them nest,
I felt their joy
_       _ accumulate, until I was ugly
no longer, but a self divorced
_       _ from a body:

_       _ beach of grit
and sea glass, bit driftwood, God-
_       _ forsaken ovaries, ashes
buried beneath a listing tree, decades
_       _ of love, the burned,
uxorious husband.

Becoming the sleep
_       _ of the sleigh bed, convinced
by a piccolo hither
_       _ and flourish, bashful
and easeful notes, a bridge of love-
_       _ making scoring sun
across earth again.