It’s early enough and the leaves still shine.
Salt wind stirs the hearts of trees, a sound of threshing words. 
What’s green will grow along the valley’s arm to vine

a trail of birdsong threaded through an airplane’s whine.
How much did I invent? The road, the blue, the birds?
It’s early enough and the leaves still shine.

I break the grass where deer have slept and try to walk their line
as my mind divides the world by the rule of thirds.
What’s green will grow along the valley’s arm to vine

and bloom in someone’s yard, or wind away like time.
Could I learn to smile at strangers, their ordinary words?
It seems early enough; the leaves still shine.

But could I ever be that kind?
Has nature softened me, planted a vision conjured
from what’s in my mind, a ghost of green along the valley’s arm to vine

through dreams of broken grass, landscape I left behind,
and the words I said to others I must have meant to hurt 
believing it was early. Look, the leaves still shine
above what’s green. Too late, what grows along the valley’s arm to vine.