1.

A pillow cradles her head.
Tears tilt
cool trails to the temples.

Into the blue and out of it
have fallen thousands
(thou to sand),
rich, poor and uninsured
who cast and reeled,
tilled, tended, or terrorized,
who beckoned
pale phototropic tourists
from the north
and welcomed them
to the fullness
of a body of water
the room temperature
of a heart.

2.

Come here.

From roots and brassicas, take heart,
from the hoarded warmth of August,
from creatures, named, crooned to,
raised to give, take heart;
from Price Chopper's
child or crone cashiers
and the Co-op's studded divas
and meditative baggers.

For ample time
above the simple friction
of our seismic faults;
for G-d or history who called
our feral cells to the high ground
where we find ourselves
without irony, let us
say grace.