- Wake to the avian overture to your meteorological opera
- Whisper the first recitative in your lover’s ear as you rise
- Don silk the color of the western horizon at dawn
- Ease through the door and into the morning garden
- Salute the blue skies
- Flit among the English lavender
- Burrow beneath the carrots without a sound
- Roust the snails and sow bugs that hide between cabbage leaves
- Startle earthworms with noble verse
- Rest during the midday intermission, but cry out for clouds to appear
- Sing a late afternoon love duet with the wren on the beanpole
- Waltz among the squash and tango over the tomatoes
- Chant to the heroic sunset
- Fly with the bats in the twilight, hunting for gnats at the garden’s edge
- Howl, but wait until moonrise
- Listen for distant yips from the chorus of coyotes
- Return their calls note for note (but in a different key)
- Fly through the garden again, much slower this time
- Carry lettuce in an offering to the stars
- Sing your final aria with the voice of dry leaves rustling
- Find your place for the curtain call (close to the fennel)
- Graciously accept your admiring lover’s gift of a thousand flowers
- Revel in thunderous applause from the gathered dragonflies
(appeared in Air Conditioning and Other Pleasures)
