Summer II

Last night
the sun set on us,
our ankles dusty in the garden,
bag after bag overflowing
and our fingers still working the beans

What was best
was not the mosquitoes' appearance,
or the green snap of a bean in my mouth,
or the doe who kept her watch over us,
but the easy current between us
passing over and through the plants -
words while we worked, when we paused;
words saved up over months and spent in minutes

Words - sounds - syllables
Morphemes and phonemes,
sighs and grunts,
theologies and metaphors and ideologies
And all that can never quite suffice
to make real the places we've been,
in this world
and in our hearts.

Nevermind the places we are going...

But there were the beans
and there was the dirt.
The barn was red behind you
and a field of sunflowers watched the sun sink low.
Words made this,
made us here,
made it real, and good.