Drawn From Photo (for Gerhard Richter)

i believe that the beating heart    the cold strokes defining the trees
the deer     its blur     the first sketched line
i could never see past the weathered brown planks
only wood     darkened     no sunlight

	i believe in god as a fog

to where your garden breathed i touched mystery
grass drawn against a white wall where
over the wide eyes’ spark     shut door the deer blur
motion seen through a window

	that a camera hand would be unstable

have past the cameras the sketchiness of birch trees
final as cut     the fence fallen down
over the sidewalk and at last the artist’s initials
harsh     abstract traffic     the two letters clear
stepping sketchily over leaves

from Amateur Mythology (2017)