Blue Pine

I almost ran into Jen walking past
The house. “Wake up!” she said.
And I realized how much time
I spend in a dream world, in clouds
of preoccupations like mosquitoes.

In Spanish, “preocupado” means worried
because that’s what worries are: things
we haven’t yet admitted to ourselves
are worthless static blips in precious
brainspace that should be used for
love and understanding.

“Preocupado” is why I take my
reading out to the dock and end up
just lying there and listening:
to cicadas talking across the inlet,
to the guy who works at the
boathouse kicking a soccer ball
against the wall, to the far-off
leafblower drone.

When I open my eyes,
everything is more saturated
in blue than usual—a trick
of bright sun—especially
the pine tree above the
white canoes. The sky behind
it seems to have seeped into
its needles. A sentinel,
it stands to mark the movement
of everything else—clouds
passing behind it, soft-edged
mosaics—huge dragonflies
swooping dizzily towards home.

Every time I lie on the dock it is for
this same dream of nothing
but standing content and planted,
this something-wordless
soaking into my skin.