states of grace

the cold riverbank
    hazel and silver after rain
cattails dripping the almost stillness

    liquid streaks
down trunks of bare trees
    faint trickle of the familiar

where we walk two
    together and each
apart

distant houses shrink and darken
    in the orchid twilight
overripe in the west
    clouds bruise
into night       edges tinging
    an afterlife

thirty years and no words
    as faithful
as an ordinary solitude

    our breath geysering
before us       brown grasses
    sheened by the rains