PASSAGES
I look down , find foothold on tree root steps that climb through woods . Mosses speak , lichens echo green , rise on hosts of trunks , form cartilage for rock ledges . Greening of a human-heart
. . .
A butterfly lights on echinacea . Red orange wings open and close — for balance not flight . A memory moves into the air , hovers , returns nourished .
. . .
Ochre earth holds footprints like the preserved bodies in bogs who trust us to tell their sacrificial story .
. . .
The stones belong to the stream . Once , they heard sawing , saw shaking hemlocks , smelled vinegar winds .
. . .
Existence trembles – the last leaf on a January tree .