Day works into night,
a great blue heron silhouettes black against
the last pink slip of sunset.
Near the end of my route,
kitchen lights outnumber the stars,
the year’s new twilight shadows me home.
If nothing had changed, this dusk, would make
all the difference, but our flag flags
in bitter gusts of assumption.
Now a planet blinks through the trees.
Stern branches, still bare, bow in a promise
of bud, leaf, and flower.
Hope springs eternal,
because the Eternal rises from mud,
from the tomb, and pours, like rain, into the street.
