New Year's Day, 2008

A photograph of you, turning from the camera
Pouring your grace on someone
Outside the frame.
Still, severed as I am,
I see you,
And still, there it is, there, still,
The lovely upwelling of the light.

Light around the corners of
Everything.
There it is, still.

The Willamette gleams
Like a flake fallen from the peeling sky,
Like a mirror held between the bridges.
Patterned like a sword blade,
And inlaid with precious lights;
The dimpled water, the whirlpools,
Cold-burning vortices spun by the pylons --

My ankle turns on river rock,
Sickness comes quick into my throat,
Fever crawls over my flinching skin,
To remind me I am old.

Suppose I slowly drew up a coat sleeve
And laid a hand in the water,
Reaching for blessings, reaching for conclusions:
Nothing for me here. You are gone,
And the river is cold in its bed.

You would think it was the end of the story --
Nothing more to say:

But there it is, still, there, still,
The lovely upwelling of the light.