Garden of Choices
It all comes down
to my friend telling me
he’s an empty basket.
Why not fill it, I ask,
with the dead of night,
the wet light of morning,
or maybe a sigh?
Next, a layer of sound—
the bark of an unseen dog,
song the cricket hauls
to my porch to drown out
the tyranny of thunder,
and the murmur of wildflowers
as frost hovers.
Then you could weave
across the basket handle
the hiss of a sling shot stone
speeding past your ear,
the shiver from its closeness
and the splendor of a spark
as stone strikes stone.