I caught this sky last week – a canopy of peach and plum, those colors of summer, of lushness, bare skin, juice dripping down your hand.  The cold is closing in, and the landscapes feel so barren, so brown, so lifeless.

My wife, Pam, says, “But look at all the colors!!!”  Where? I think.  What are you seeing?  She sees the red tips of the branches,  waves of subtle yellows, golds, oranges, even after the leaves have fallen and all that remains are those empty fields.  To her, they are full of color of delight.  I am more inclined to lean south – I yearn for hibiscus, for bouganvilla, for palm trees, for the broad green platters of sea grape leaves and the deep turquoise and cobalt of a tropical sea.

And yet, look at that sky with its startle of naked branches!

In a cat’s throat, in a shell I hold
to my ear — though I’m told
this is the sound of my own
blood. I have heard the ocean
in the city: cars against
the beach of our street. Or in
the subway, waiting for a train
that carries me like a current.
In my bed: place of high and low
tide or in my daughter’s skates,
rolling over the sidewalk.
Ocean in the trees when they
fill their heads with wind.
Ocean in the rise and fall:
lungs of everyone I love.