Love Poem on a Peninsula

for Kathy, as always

 

On the way to a run

I pulled over to watch goslings,

around a dozen,

bent to tender grass.

 

 

The adults let me get close,

maybe because I wanted

some pictures to show

Kathy when she got out of work.

 

“Oh, John,” she would have said,

my name at the top of her throat,

held for a full pleading measure

so the geese would take my soul.

 

 

“Oh, Kathy,” I answered as light

off the lake blinded my first steps,

“these colors are for your eyes,

this perfect air is your blessing.”

 

And she would have told me

to receive every curiosity and dazzle,

sometimes stammering with joy,

our path a riot of hosannas.

 

 

She was desk-bound during my run,

but still announced the toad—

or frog or whatever—I nearly crushed

and the bird dragging dead grass home.

 

It’s not as though I have a choice.

Kathy insists that I learn: Beauty is urgent.

“Hey, look.” She hopes to save me.

“Look,” she says. “Oh, John, look!”