Only a fool thinks everything stays the same.
I love fulfilled expectations and flat floors. 
I assume my car will start,
fillings will stay in my teeth. 

I am a fool who spends birthdays imagining
myself reincarnate as squid, Icelandic pony, 
agate geode, western red cedar, or doorknob. 
Allowing moss to cling. 
Unwilling to give up on forever. 

Then I sniff a hint of wildfire
or peaches going over-ripe.
I start to breathe deeply,
heady swap of I-am-of-this-earth.
Air. Energy. Oneness.

Changed from the day before,
slim promise for the hour after that.
                        

Would-be fools assemble
to tell tall-tales and lies
meaning to be funny.
My dog has enough smarts

to lay on a patch of stone in sun. 
The ice is in retreat, not gone,
and where the snowplow scattered
sand and gravel, I crunch

toward the mailbox’s day 
of ads for lily bulbs, summer
camps, and recent local votes
that promise change. 
                        

This sky fluffs like a feather bed shaken,
scattering compacted love and dust
stretched and aired to jumpstart the soul.  

This sky blew in stepping-stone clouds 
for the ambitious, hopscotch for the children 
and a pebbled road for shadowed women

fleeing home like ghosts on a back road 
past people sheltering in their quiet –
where skylights hear wings beat

and ears ring with geese going north 
through a red layer low to the woods.
Day ending with holes in dappled sky

as the universe offers itself vastly.