Each day at dusk, in need of quiet affirmation, a constant gardener hops
from branch to strand of electric cable outside our patio to remind me
of the power of one plangent note riffing ’cross currents of sugarcane tops
while crisp nor’easters nudge pacifist clouds towards a phalanx of mahogany,
tamarind and coconut.  I find most things bearable then: the civil
machinery has laid down its fusty head, the workers in limbo fretting
at the bit this millennial generation will splay and flail in their fearful