On a Day, In the World

          We had a grief
we didn’t understand while
          standing at the edge of
    some low scrub hills as if
humans were extra
    or already gone;—

what had been in us before?
          a life that asks for mostly
    wanting freedom to get things done
in order to feel less
          helpless about the end
    of things alone—;

when i think of time on earth,
    i feel the angle of gray minutes
          entering the medium days
    yet not “built-up”:: our
work together: groups, the willing
    burden of an old belief,

          & beyond them love, as of
    a great life going like fast
creatures peeling back marked
    seeds, gold-brown integuments
    the color time
will be when we are gone—

From Extra Hidden Life, among the Days. Copyright © 2018 by Brenda Hillman. Reprinted with the permission of the author and Wesleyan University Press.