Drain

into the earth I dig

not quite a foot deep

eighteen inches wide

save the sods to hide

bare spots where once

lay uprooted flags

my trench starts at

the east/west fence line

that separated front

from back yard (took

the fence down last

week), runs twenty feet

toward the salt pond

strew red lava rock

found in rotting planters

onto soft black earth

if it works — collects

rain, acts as a drain —

I’ll dig it longer, all

the way to the pond

Sitting Outside at the End of Autumn

by Charles Wright

Three years ago, in the afternoons,

                                      I used to sit back here and try

To answer the simple arithmetic of my life,

But could never figure it —

This object and that object

Never contained the landscape

                                                 nor all of its implications,

This tree and that shrub

Never completely satisfied the sum or quotient

I took from or carried to,

                                     nor do they do so now,

Though I’m back here again, looking to calculate,

Looking to see what adds up.

Everything comes from something,

                                     only something comes from nothing,

Lao Tzu says, more or less,

Eminently sensible, I say,

Rubbing this tiny snail shell between my thumb and two fingers.

Delicate as an earring,

                                   it carries its emptiness like a child

It would be rid of.

I rub it clockwise and counterclockwise, hoping for anything

resplendent in its vocabulary or disguise —

But one and one make nothing, he adds,

                                                                endless and everywhere.

The shadow that everything casts.