Despite enormous suffering, can art insist on the perseverance of hope? I have been thinking a lot about how poetry communicates and wondering whether an art form so quiet stands a chance against the roar of violence and brutality. I want it to.

This is a love poem to both my husband and the San Francisco Bay Area. Sometimes people disparage our city, but we fight for what’s right here, and we love one another well.

‘Department of Quiet Phenomena’

“Scientists have discovered trees ‘talk’ through roots, owls warn through wingflash. Maybe rocks, too, vibrate in frequencies beyond our ears. Communication buzzes all around us unrecognized.”

—Susan Briante

Poetry is to listen
and speak at different
frequencies. It denies lines
in the sand, over land, over fistfuls

of ocean. Reminds us
that if we grip fewer things,
what we need remains.
The rest sinks like stone.

I know the world outside is cold, is violent,
but here on the couch, we are in love.
I stay quiet to say
because of you I feel at home.

When you call on a break from work
I envision you on a bench in the shadow
of the Transamerica, hiding
a midday cigarette. When I say

there is so much beauty, this is what I mean.