We can’t help but say one thing and mean another — Richard Jackson

Perhaps in another tongue there’s a word for finding
one thing when you’re searching for another
as a dreamed child supplants the real child,
as fire appears as wind.

Peering through pendant limbs
of a celestial spruce
in search of the Summer Triangle
I spot a crisscross of bare branches
beneath the crown then quickly pivot
as the widowmaker plummets to earth

and when stretched out on the dandelioned lawn
if I hadn’t opened my eyes
at the long face of the risen moon
I’d have missed the kettle
of broad-wings disappearing
beyond the ridge tops.

     Once I dreamed of all I’d imagined then forgot:
     metaphors dashed, poems stillborn.
     I wasn’t out to invent one thing as something else.

    Rain doesn’t weep. Snow loosening
     then falling in cakes from power lines
     is snow. This is about the other overtaking the moment.

Spinning skewers of vegetables on the grill,
swarming gnats spin my head toward September’s
wave of nighthawks tumbling from scumbled sky.

Eyeing the panhandler talking up travelers
exiting the depot on Asylum Street,
starlight suddenly limns the neighborhood in fantasy.

Since what I’ve missed is untranslatable
how can I apprehend all I’ve seen
when I turn,
recklessly,
in the same direction?