On this gray, near-drizzling day
I write again this love letter
for the earth, which is, I suppose,
what all poems are, though they
disguise themselves as poems about
children or wine or baseball or snow.
On this longest night, it’s so clear—
the truest reason to write at all is to fall
more deeply in love with the world,
with its trees and its drizzle
and its stubborn shine and its
relentless hunger and its corners
that will never ever ever see the growing light.
Fall in love with the octopus that can detach
an arm on purpose and then grow it back again.
Fall in love with the elusive lynx
and the crooked forest and the frazzle ice
tinkling in the San Miguel River.
Fall in love even with this profoundly flawed
species that, despite all its faults,
is still capable of falling more deeply,
more wildly in love.