Less than fifty miles from here,
nearly all of the people I love
are waking up too early
or going to bed in daylight
and everyone’s talking,
talking, talking…about poetry.
In the back yard the big oak
is mute, showing alternate stripes
of wet mud-dark and dry sandy-light bark
to the world — evidence
of another thunderstorm
well-weathered…
this early,
this neighborhood’s
damn near silent,
except for this poem.
Dark Matter 