Humbly I walk the wetlands,
goldfinches spring from sere red leaves
into trees stripped bare primeval

Ancient caws overhead sing
the timeless, the space of gray
I am in

Drowsy rodents at hollowed knots,
woody sworls where broods
await winter

A stream of water diverts to run
the clearing at the eddy's edge
where the last leaves alight like Giverny water lilies

Points of light touch my optic nerve,
for a moment the world is inverted
but I'm upside-down so all's righted

The air hints impending,
upending each moment
till the next until now

I scream inside, cry outside,
I ache to grasp the is,
the all that isn't

I climb onto a low branch,
a vantage above ground,
my back against trunk for balance

First small birds then early snow,
alight on my lashes, till I am consumed
in feathery frost

In thaw I am the vernal pool
that reflects moonlight in
the faces of thirsting deer

From me erupts the eternal
smaller than life as we know it,
divine, grander than anything not

cc: Chagall 2018/2022