Shirtless Sundays

7/21

I sat shirtless on Sunday in the kitchen peeling peaches.

I sliced them up for the cold future and sucked the pits.

A particularly sweet white peach clarified my thoughts with awareness
and I saw the soil and the roots,
the rain and the sun,
the pollen and the bee,
the cold and the heat,
the fuel and the oil,
the movement and the sweat,
the time,
that brought this miracle to my lips,
and I wondered at all the miracles that I take for granted
and I looked at my wife and I smiled.

I was glad she was home.
I'd taken for granted how much she does.


7/28

I lean on the hood, shirtless on Sunday, and slowly drink my Pabst.

The warmth of the engine feels strangely good in this July dusk.

Milk crates and buckets and trash from the week liter the yard,
but beyond the barn,
out where Nemo barks,
there is Majesty.

The mountains are blue and the amber is dead grass,
but the skies are spacious and pink and gray and purple
and full of wispy and streaked, and thick and deep clouds,
and the plains are fruitful with cattle and sheep and pigs and chickens.

America, oh Virginia, God shed his grace on you.