How many beginnings this day?
I no longer believe one day follows another.
Some days have future and past
muddled in the present.
And some days, never to be,
will want a place at my table.
Daydreams. The romance of rain.
Fear, more afraid of itself than me.
Today, for my dear children,
the first day of school.
An instrument with three strings
called Mark, Michael, and Jack.
Three notes of infinite depth and tone.
Mark with dark eyes,
four centuries old.
Michael, as whimsical as C,
with seven octaves.
And Jack, tall enough to see
above a field of wheat,
who visits Shangri-la every year
he lives, and returns with peace,
ten times in all.
They will come home today
with stories,
new friends and teachers,
apocryphal or so.
Falcons weighing the atmosphere
for flight,
looking to the crescent
of the earth,
children who can fly without falling.
On whose wings I can pause
half past time,
and live where they go,
first day of everything,
first day of school.