My dreams find
home
in distant mountains.
What can we bring
that would be a blessing
to this clean new edge of sky?
Awake and wash
at pond’s edge; ice
has not yet formed.
See and feel the
feathery clouds in
morning’s wind-washed sky;
listen as October leaf
falls and finds the damp, soft
earth.
Whoever built this gate
has gone away;
hear the latch snick shut as
rust meets wood meets emptiness.
Deer running sleek
in sacred places:
open meadow meets birch thicket;
not far now to go, to find
cool shade of hemlocks and sleep.
Not quite
reaching
crescent moon
white pine is
dark and tall
and swaying
strong
but
also
holding hard to
earth.
Easy to see the wind
stir quiet water, make
ripples outward—
but it might take this lifetime
to know and become
ripples deep and inward.
- Kevin Macneil Brown
