We draw lines, sort
the good and bad
like fruit that won’t last
forever. It’s how we are
with new things
that don’t quite fit
what we remember
of the old ways
marked by seasons,
never one the same.
All the dust and dirt
in ’77, the leppy wanderings
when it could not rain,
hillsides solid gold
in the warm wet spring
of ’78—we survived them.
But hard to say, today
what resilient beauty waits—
how the bad fruit rots
and its seed takes hold
to make a generous tree.
drycrikjournal 