To have that letter arrive

was like the mist that took a meadow

and revealed hundreds

of small webs once invisible

The inevitable often

stands by plainly but unnoticed

till it hands you a letter

that says death and you notice

the weed field had been

readying its many damp handkerchiefs

all along

From The Chattahoochee Review   2006

Selected byTed Kooser for his American Life

in Poetry Column  (#159) 2007