A Courtship

          an abecedarian

About this time of the morning
before the switch from fresh to heat,
come find me, sit beside me.
Dare to take me seriously.
Even if you don’t really love me,
find something in your heart worth
giving. Give it then to me.
Hear voices rise in singing, deep
in the woods where we can’t see,
just as the larks and robins sing.
Kindness in your eyes, your voice—
loving tenderness abide. Your laugh is
merry, musical. Your body young,
new, unspoiled. Let us wander
over fields and forest paths,
past fawns and does, bobbing strings of
quail. Our names etched on the sky by 
red-tailed hawks, slow swooping in the 
sunset’s dimming. We are bound   
together in the twilight. You guide me 
under brush grown tall and lush, through
veils of spiders’ gossamer spinning—
where we are going, we don’t need
Xanadu or Shangri-la. Just 
you and me, bound and blessed, at the
zenith of our happiness.