The new abnormal
     isn’t. Now, intensity
is all the chatter
     round the piles of brush—jays,
          chickadees, cardinals concur:

we’re in for it guys.
     Take the last storm for instance:
downed trees, a blown-out
     window, freight train of a wind,
          inconvenient, not New York,

not the Jersey shore
     mangled, rearranged. Venice
is in our future.
     We’ll be toast if we’re not sunk—
          that’s the latest dissensus.

And yet, prosaic
     reflection just mirrors us
back, no matter how
     accurate. We barely touch
          what lies below, hovers, is.

For that, better to
     turn back and begin again
from where we are not.
     The stream courses round the bend,
          the wind is a swirl of leaves,

coyotes yip in
     the field at nightfall, deer heed
the dawn, with the moon
     crescent fading away, and
          the sun, the star of it all.