yes to the tiny rake spreading its rays around your eyes

Yes to the dark, uneven body of each tree
Yes to each blowing branch with its thousands of half-closed hands
Yes to the grass, its millions of wet and sentient blades
Yes to the gray-daubed sky above us and inside us
Yes to the headlights of oncoming cars, speeding brave unthinking,
          currents of white eyes
Yes to the red departing taillights, the rivers forming
          where they leave, the quiet which follows their rushing
Yes to the gravel driveways, the sweet, standing
          effort of the houses,
          the lights coming on in their windows the way a child
          opens her eyes after a long sleep, and, in the moment
          of waking, holds out her arms
Yes to the tiny rake spreading its rays around your eyes
Yes to the fields gone golden with dying
Yes to the ocean of light at the horizon
          under the electric wires, behind the rain

I don't want you young again, nor me
I want every sadness we've ever lived to stand here beside us,
          between the swaying soldiers of dead corn,
I want loss rolling around in our mouths
          where our tongues collide,
I want death sitting naked between us,
          lowering its head to lap at our champagne

[Ruth L. Schwartz {1962- } 'Falling in Love after Forty' from New Young American Poets]