Quiet, quiet house, a soaking quiet of hearty rain, early out the door into the drenching and sogged field after city streets, a landing of boots into my cushion of muck and splatter, on the river, drops pulsing and pounding and wind whooshing the branches, fresh whipped buds, what's best, is his scribble of note, a few plain unfancy words he left on my pillow, (last night, to bed alone after a long journey home), last night, his note in his absence a happy presence, quiet house, yellow paper, a line, penned quickly, he might not have left a printed wish for me at all, but what he wants, is what I want is what we want to be remembered, to be rippled and circled and circled, and orbited, a marriage we tend in every weather