Sometimes
it takes me decades
to open a book I've acquired

I sense the importance
inherent
between the covers
when I buy it,
though I'm separated from it
by maybe fifteen years of maturing

I store it
up on the shelf,
hear it mumbling
to itself
through many a windy night,
snow creeping across the windows,
the blanket heavy on my skin,
the skin tight around my body

Then, one morning late in March 2022,
traveling through the frontier lands
of my seventy-fourth year,
I notice a book vibrating suspiciously,
and pull it out;
Philip Whalen's Collected Poems,
the Rothenberg edit,
and realize we have merged,
the book and I,
for the opening of a powerful co-operative reading
as spring winds gust
around this think tank house
of my southern retreat;
a rumble on the infra level
rising out of the wind grappling
with the concrete constructions
of the habitats of human beings
lost in thought,
the bright blue eyes
of Anemone hepaticas shining
through yesteryear's leaves
by the bike path into town

I used to sit in front of the speakers,
playing ”fucking loud”,
but now I prefer to have the music reach me
from another room,
like wildwife Anna calling:

”Wanna go for a walk?”