by Juditha Dowd
and I’m doubtful
that no experience goes to waste
if only we’re able to learn from it.
Deer have mangled our deer fence,
that fox is prowling the yard.
Where will we be next year
when these maples shed their gold?
You and I have lived enough
to pretend at wisdom,
take the long view,
but the angles are foreshortened
as our fields turn murky and cold.
Soon the Long Night Moon
and two-faced Janus.
Soon the weeks of ice,
the days of mending.
Juditha Dowd’s most recent book is Audubon’s Sparrow, a verse biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon, wife of the naturalist.