for the sweetest lass

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies
                                                   ~Robert Frost

no one dares write poems about fireflies anymore
because fireflies have been well-written
yet their tiny glimmers make the heart glad
and I like to think these little points of light
might shine for you, too
and burn off that throb of solitude
make the ancient emptiness a vestigial

coat of arms        today the lost pups came home
and whimpered ‘round your bed after an unexpected
outing in the thicket, yet you’d not the audacity
to write poems about liquid brown eyes
and unconditional love because that has been done, too,
but we allow that each deep look and love
and undried river smell is not all about dogs

but us and the day—lass, you deserve
licks on the nose and grunts of contentment,
dreams of cowboys with wide-brimmed hats
playing guitar to soften a hard bed of clay—
we might envy the stars and be left with sobs,
we might draw maps of our hoped-for kingdoms
charcoaling out the only roads to cities
of sea roses and oklahoma dust

in every poem, we might howl like babies
yet we hope we are not pretentious, surrounded
as we are by made things that take us away from the heart
of the woods, the hollows we wish for our beds,
newborn things pushing through the detritus
of fallen leaves

this is a dangerous storm, but I’ve the umbrella
and you’ve the pretty house, and we’ll make it
a mere inconvenience—we’ll write our clichés
and turn them into topiaries of chicory blue,
a pavilion of poppies bursting forth in a wave of joy