here -- and there – alive!

We sit and listen
as the poet reads lines
he’s written,
recalling them
for his coming blindness
so, at midnight,
the only light still shining
is his voice being shadowed
by the slow shift of sea.

Morning, Like a Gray Fox

Morning, like a gray fox,
slips past the shadow of death.
It does not really matter the fox
is not here. Perhaps
it is there, sleek as memory,
a ghost soon enough gone
into the gathering of light.

But it is not here now,
save in a voice bothersome
beyond our inner ear.
Here, cracked vessel, we seize
its likewise shifting shape,
the form fixed from earth,
disinterred by fire. Even if
only by insistence of these lines.
What matters is this morning

here -- and there – alive!
Dear death out-foxed!