Already afternoon, already this day backing away, rolling out of reach, all the morning’s busyness — e-mail, phone messages, the run along Bayview, sunlight across the road, the smell of wet earth, snow, manure, and pine along the cow pasture; earlier, too, those whispers, sparrows at first light, the brusque crow of love, all the heart’s kindling. The cats find us, the calico stretching out on top of the sofa, the ginger-and-white asleep on the rocker. You, on a chair across from me, reading Anam Cara and making notes, don’t look up, say nothing I can use to turn this into a poem. 4:20, already the light dark as blue coal.