What was the name you gave the mouse we found
in the field? Was it Tiny, or Graybeard or something
more mundane? And by mundane I mean, of course,
of earth, of ground, of something tied and tethered
here like you, like me. And what was the sound
that rose in your throat as he flew up from the grass
before us? I remember — it was a thousand bees
drunk on the new honey and the honey
of the air here. It was laughter and breath together,
which we don’t have a word for on this muddy earth,
or at least inside our English names and tongues.
But you don’t need a word to make a sound
and make it mean what you meant to mean, like ‘bees
are not mundane’ or ‘when Graybeard jumps away
from us he is both on and not even of
this earth,’ meanings which most anyone
could figure out a way to catch and store
inside. But outside I could only wonder.
And I wonder still why the mouse’s earthly name
escapes me, Rache, and I wonder like an idiot
if you’ll remember mine, or the way I looked
at you that day — as if my back were pinned
to clouds and I was only allowed to look
down, down — if you’ll remember my laughing
when you laughed, my breathing beside you when
you breathed, the sparks of rye grass in the dying
light, and the bees, Rache, in you, the bees.