Find you a place where the trees grow tall,
                  where bells tell the hours,
where woodsmoke sharpens the air
            when the year starts to turn.

           A place you can sit in a pew
and hear the ancient words intoned.

          Build you a porch, granny said,
where your dog can lie and dream beside your chair.
                  Get a patch of mint growing
         underneath where the faucet drips.

Let there be lightning bugs on summer evenings
           so you can sit out with whiskey
and watch those winged rovers etch their
         fire-paths and courtship journeys.

And the lightning itself, the old lady said. Take time
           to let it thrill you—lightning,
                           and the low knuckling rumble
of thunder from the other side of the mountain

in the long unfathomable nights.
          Let the rain on your rooftop lay its long
fingers on your sleep, and take the hurt away
          from what surrounds us.