Poetry Porch

Small cedar deck,
now 
redwood-stained.

Everything I see is stuff
I’ve already mentioned 
in poems—

basswood tree, 
bigger
than my house,

stone garden border, 
lacquered
with sooty-mold,

call of a cardinal, 
unmistakable
jackhammer cheeps,

chimney-ed building on the alley, 
more a carriage house
than a garage!

Yard layout same 
as the landscape of my memory—
well puttered-through.