Hush

It's a long walk from the meadow
to the wood—grass saps
from green to wheat, thin sheers
to waist-high thrush.

From the mass of tawny
blades, hard pines constrict
and cough—branches gnarled
knobs, trunks polionic knots.

Open sky, the land here
burns—lungs hot air
balloons, bare feet
bubbled tar.

The wood, ahead
a funnel cloud of sage
and shade—
a disproportionate cupola
of canopy. Advancing,

the first shaft of shadow
grazes shoulder and
the smell of heat
recoils. Arrival:

sweeter, stronger,
the source and scent
of water in a den
of darkquick quiet.

Threads of light
pinpoints of weightless stars
showering through the trees,
gently landing
in hair, in hand
from the web of rarefied
air. Drifting on,

seduced by silence—steps
a strider's over surface
of fallen needle lining
soil—drawn

like tide over
moon, like metal to magnet
to mirror, toward the dusky
wet center of
something like wonder it's clear

that purpose has pull.
That there is a Beyond
and a Better from
where you've been.
That peace is a path.

(My heart fell
silent in a vacant
wood—I heard it
echo back.)

.