A neighbor travels to Göbekli Tepe and ponders
T-shaped pillars with carved gazelles and vultures;

you stay within a half-mile radius and notice
on December 23 the Scotch broom has yellow flowers.

The Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly
is about to go extinct; roofers painting metal flashing

listen to Mexican music; a thief climbs a utility pole
and, stripping copper cable, electrocutes himself;

in this world of endless disjunctions and conjunctions,
you struggle to parse the zigzag flight of a butterfly.

At night you see the moon overhead has a wide
halo of light, and, though you read that the effect

is from light refracted on ice crystals through
transparent cirrus clouds, the explanation

does not elucidate light, ice, or cloud. Above
a highway to the west, patches of water shimmer;

you know the water’s a mirage, yet you write
to shimmer: you shimmer and dissolve into your words.