ACROSS THE DISTANCE

How do we stretch
across that distance we leave
like a gift, the occasion
unknown but left by habit
or fear of what's unopened?

On the deck above the creek
this morning the air
is almost warm already, so much
like real summer this spring day,
the sun spills like soft fire through the trees.
How intense is too intense?
How much fire is there
in a summer? How much power
in a long slow river?

Is it clarity we seek, some way
to know what can be known
only as we watch the iris, planted
strong and careful in the open
fields, bloom and sleep and bloom
season after season?

A palm can stay wide open
for twenty five years, the distance
can be spanned in many single bounds.
The fields of iris are tended by hand.
There is no doubt they will bloom
again each spring.