I’m listening to my father and his brother,
both in their eighties, debate their childhood
from adjoining La-Z-Boy recliners.

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”

We are Starseeds  
                   every one of us –  
                                                     you & me,

at the end of a bad year. Trees begin
to outnumber houses. Rain turns to snow
as fields hang like paintings.