Now

For the poet William Stafford, in memoriam

Now we must try to go to sleep again

The cat meows softly in the bedroom dark

The night is quiet here, though downtown

There must be plenty of noise out there, I don't hear it

Only my tinnitus humming steadily away—

Like cosmic background radiation, I say,

An old friend

Every hour or two a Norfolk Southern goods train rumbles through the "back forty"

Cats teach us how to be alone in the world

Free and unafraid.

The smallest animal is wiser than a man:

Things you can't think, it can.

Thursday, July 31, 2025