How Many Times?

a birthday poem for Donna, June 8, 2012

She uncovers undiscovered species every day.

She usually comes upon them when they’re sleeping –
such is her supernally strange gentleness they seldom wake –
except, sometimes, to take the measure of her face

the way a puppy does when it looks up a moment from a nap,
in a lap, and learns that absolutely nothing is a problem.
The sweet emolument of her investigation is sufficient
to assure unprecedented forms of life that they are safe:

and more, that they’ll enjoy her rapt unsentimental interest
in their fate – oh, not devoid of feeling – never that: so full
of caring for their frail existence that they know they’re
being seen because they matter. Let disguises scatter.

She is you. And I am always yet another sleeping species.
How many times have you delectably detected me?







.