The Naturalist’s Last Love Poem

Nothing on earth
can last forever.
It’s become an art:
rain and the river

cut cliffs. Cold swings;
leaves fall with fervor.
Birds molt: their wings
lost feather by feather.

By increments,
tides slink like fever
from shore. Immense,
they drift out further.

So, when she leaves,
the world’s small favor:
I’ll forget, by degrees—
if over and over.