Before Dark, and After
Page 3
The moon reflecting in her eyes mirrored the possibility
as I tightened my grip, refusing to let go.
***
Going Home
What waits beyond
the hill in the entire
unlit land of open fields
and dark woods
is nothing other than
a place to come home to.
Deer stand frozen
alongside the road,
eyes liquid green
before the car’s passing.
The fields absorb starlight
as the woods absorb the fields,
while just beyond the far window
a light warms my door.
***
Before Dark
The moment fire took hold
the doe stopped dead in the drive
as flame turned to gold
consuming debris in her path.
She could not have foreseen
(despite tracing my prints from the road)
someone coming between
herself and this place.
Tail flicking, reluctant to pass,
she yearned to reclaim what was hers—
a last impression in grass
now filled like a grave in the snow.
I watched her watching fire,
each of us waiting, at rest,
until she turned from desire
and stepped lightly afield.
(I see her at twilight
enter the gloom of deep woods,
leaving a trace to be tracked into night
or forgotten.)
***
Afterglow
On this plot of untilled ground
we call a garden, I wait
and watch the ebbing embers.
The moon is nowhere to be found
as cold impends to penetrate
the warm aura that shelters
my limbs. To be sure,
I rake the ash-cool coals
until flames rekindle and stir,
flickering in mirroring windows
down the dark and quiet street
—all the while creepers
and crawlers teem in the soil
undisturbed beneath my feet.
Time comes to end the day’s toil
when, putting foot to hayfork,
I pitch the tines and stand at ease,
at last fulfilled with work,
and listen to a chorus of peepers
in the dark beyond the trees.
***
The End
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