The Shared Life
by Michael Escoubas

(after a line by Wallace Stevens:
the poem refreshes life so that we share)

The enchantment of June evenings when fireflies
blink and wink, and crickets babble their chords,

each one singing its own unique sound. A redbird’s
unexpected flash that brightens a gray day.

Blue and white clouds, using Monet's brush, paint
the horizon as the descending sun shimmers

on a lake bordered by pines. A lone fisherman
oars his boat into its slip. The feeling one gets

standing still in gentle rain. The moods that visit one
in falling snow. A moment of grief that comes

out of nowhere; but dissipates when the forest blooms
in spring. Colors bursting forth as autumn’s leaves

give in to their inevitable end.
This shared life, this almost-human universe,

sends it loving message: the poem refreshes life
so that we share in all the goodness of life on earth.



 

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