the last crane, remaining tiger, final shark
will go on living.

Somewhere a woman says, "Look,"
and the man lifts his eyes from his fish line,
sees what she sees, white as a ghost,
flying by and into memory.

They don't know she's pregnant yet,
don't know they're the crane's last witnesses,
but their three hearts beat and widen like wings,
and when the baby grows, he'll always be searching the sky.

Like the tiger searches. Like the shark,
in its sleepless patrol, seeks more than food;
its mind as deep and old as seven oceans
has never learned, or needed to learn, alone.

Is it better or worse—hoping to find another?
Better or worse—knowing there's only you?
The final tiger can't answer this.
For a while more, there will be roaring.

Then the heartbroken silence of the woods.

 

Today the rain is dancing,
     and the Earth's green eyes
           say she's happy in its arms.
The Earth's whole body says it:
     tequila dancing in the cactus
           and salt layered into the rock;
tulips touched open by April,
     then spring kissed out of any holding back
           by May. The Earth's whole body shows it:
the moon in its close, slow dancing
     so oceans can dance with the shore,
           so sea gulls can be the way the shoreline
           dances with the sky.

The Earth's whole body knows it:
     water and beans making coffee,
           eyes and eyes making sparks,
sparks and darkness making camping
     a thing we like to do.
           Go fishing or don't go fishing,
but don't try denying that a river is a song,
     sometimes quiet, sometimes white
           with wild abandon. Don't try denying

what the wind wants to do with your hair.
     Or that leaves dance green with the sun
           or red and gold with autumn.
Or that yesterday dances with tomorrow
     and we're all of us moving
           through the spaces in between….

I know a beautiful woman, a woman like music
     always about to begin,
           a woman who loves loving.
If I told her "The rain is dancing," she'd agree.

"I do," for instance, is conditional;
the truth, it turns out, is political;
and equal means that most have equally less.

But words are like elastic, and unless
you're careful not to stretch too far, they won't
snap back….

I know what it is to be in love,
and no one has the right to disapprove
of who I love. They might, but they'd be wrong.

What else? Our lives are loaned to us. Not long.
And not to pile up money. Not for power.
And how we pay that loan back does matter:

with interest, yes—with being interested;
by promising and keeping promises;
by caring more and minding much less instead.