Kindest Regards. Ted Kooser

the air and huddling

      in fields with their heads to the lee.

      You will know that the weather is changing

      when your sheep leave the pasture

      too slowly, and your dogs lie about

      and look tired; when the cat

      turns her back to the fire,

      washing her face, and the pigs

      wallow in litter; cocks will be crowing

      at unusual hours, flapping their wings;

      hens will chant; when your ducks

      and your geese are too noisy,

      and the pigeons are washing themselves;

      when the peacocks squall loudly

      from the tops of the trees,

      when the guinea fowl grate;

      when sparrows chip loudly

      and fuss in the roadway, and when swallows

      fly low, skimming the earth;

      when the carrion crow

      croaks to himself, and wild fowl

      dip and wash, and when moles

      throw up hills with great fervor;

      when toads creep out in numbers;

      when frogs croak; when bats

      enter the houses; when birds

      begin to seek shelter,

      and the robin approaches your house;

      when the swan flies at the wind,

      and your bees leave the hive;

      when ants carry their eggs to and fro,

      and flies bite, and the earthworm

      is seen on the surface of things.

      Snow Fence

      The red fence

      takes the cold trail

      north; no meat

      on its ribs,

      but neither has it

      much to carry.

      In an Old Apple Orchard

      The wind’s an old man

      to this orchard; these trees

      have been feeling

      the soft tug of his gloves

      for a hundred years.

      Now it’s April again,

      and again that old fool

      thinks he’s young.

      He’s combed the dead leaves

      out of his beard; he’s put on

      perfume. He’s gone off

      late in the day

      toward the town, and come back

      slow in the morning,

      reeling with bees.

      As late as noon, if you look

      in the long grass,

      you can see him

      still rolling about in his sleep.

      After the Funeral: Cleaning Out the Medicine Cabinet

      Behind this mirror no new world

      opens to Alice. Instead, we find

      the old world, rearranged in rows,

      a dusty little chronicle

      of small complaints and private sorrows,

      each cough caught dry and airless

      in amber, the sore feet powdered

      and cool in their yellow can.

      To this world turned the burning eyes

      after their search, the weary back

      after its lifting, the heavy heart

      like an old dog, sniffing the lids

      for an answer. Now one of us

      unscrews the caps and tries the air

      of each disease. Another puts

      the booty in a shoe box: tins

      of laxatives and aspirin,

      the corn pads and the razor blades,

      while still another takes the vials

      of secret sorrows — the little pills

      with faded, lonely codes — holding

      them out the way one holds a spider

      pinched in a tissue, and pours them down

      the churning toilet and away.

      Carrie

      “There’s never an end to dust

      and dusting,” my aunt would say

      as her rag, like a thunderhead,

      scudded across the yellow oak

      of her little house. There she lived

      seventy years with a ball

      of compulsion closed in her fist,

      and an elbow that creaked and popped

      like a branch in a storm. Now dust

      is her hands and dust her heart.

      There’s never an end to it.

      For a Friend

      Late November, driving to Wichita.

      A black veil of starlings

      snags on a thicket and falls.

      Shadows of wings skitter over

      the highway, like leaves, like ashes.

      You have been dead for six months;

      though summer and fall

      were lighter by one life,

      they didn’t seem to show it.

      The seasons, those steady horses,

      are used to the fickle weight

      of our shifting load.

      I’ll guess how it was; on the road

      through the wood, you stood up

      in the back of the hangman’s cart,

      reached a low-hanging branch,

      and swung up into the green leaves

      of our memories.

      Old friend,

      the stars were shattered windowglass

      for weeks; we all were sorry.

      They never found that part of you

      that made you drink, that made you cruel.

      You knew we loved you anyway.

      Black streak across the centerline,

      all highways make me think of you.

      Five