For one preparing to leave

Those of us remaining
can not help with selling the house, or
choose which integral part of a life
to discard and which to carry.
We can only stay,

friends who share the weather,
routes to work and the work,
and always from windows the river
beyond lawns and the desert
profusion at its bank: changing

in its subtle colors, its outward season;
even at night when we need it,
when we can not readily retrace
its deep, ongoing shape, always
there for us to turn to.