Dear 1989

I thought about you
this morning, in the dark,
how when everything was bright
and the summer had you in its claws,
you jumped off that train trestle
in to the Clark Fork river that spit you back
as a kid who couldn't walk.

You can't get off the train in Missoula.
You can get off in Libby, Whitefish
or Spokane if you're inclined to backtrack, if you're coming from the east.
It feels like closing an envelope when you
get back.

The Growing Things

There's, where spring lies and waits for summer,
a place where things should grow.
I don't know the land well,
though I want to, though I know
this will help me with me.
Where goes this seed?
Will the sun shine here forever?
The lettuce I grew stared back at me
waiting to die.
I'm sorry.
I want to make it better.
I can, when I try,
make some things work.