The Marsh, New Year's Day

The slow, cold breathing.

Black surf of birds lifting away.

The light rising in the water's skin

How many times now, on a day like this!

I've entered the celebrations of the reeds.

waking by the wren's broken house,

the frosty, burst phallus of the cattail.

In the marsh a door slams and slams.

Wherever l look

I see the old men

of my boyhood, wifeless and half-wild,

in stained canvas coats, dying like rainbows

from the feet up.

I am becoming them.