How do you know which day it is when night falls
or the minute hands within an hour’s seconds,
but we can draw the stars across our trees
and count leaves, the breeze, their seeds.

Tomorrow may be too late to remember
and the face of the clock too obscure to forget,
but we can drive into the ocean darkening
and watch shadow blackening, harkening.

Last evening the Northern Star fell from grace,
plummeted into our garden’s late afternoon tea,
but we heard it’s echo—its echo?–in its final falling,
stalling, calling, trembling into a kind of crawling.

editors note: Cloaking clouds, umbrella sky; loudly rips the hole where stars fall through. (We welcome Michael to our crazy congress of Contributing Poets with this submission. Read more of his madness on his new page – check it out.) – mh clay