Our Strides Clear The Mountains

That singing in the forest: the ringing

of rock thrown to rock in clear water,

but we are

rough as field stone,

clumsy as creeper up the fence.

We are stalled out in the pines--

abrupt as a buck’s tail through thicket

and laid low at last on a path

that winds into another season,

another wild moon.

Our shadows have crossed

in this awkward reach of thorn.

We are trying to remember

so we can cross it from a list,

so we can set down the empty glass,

our minds as one.

We are fallen in the river:

coursing mad, horses to the spring,

our feet forgotten

and only the cold and

the sharp jarring of stone

sends us bounding into the pure.

The owl in the barn

wants an echo.

The seed wants the push.

The road wants dust, and dust, more dust,

to send its secret swirl up in a longing shape.

We are driving downwards

past stamen and pistil,

hyacinth holds us,

tulip embraces,

lily’s bell

thrills our hands

that we once thought empty,

and now so full of fragrance.