And Then I Touched a Match to New-Laid Wood

1. The Path into the Light

These are the dark days that begin
with sky the color of old china
heavy with unformed questions.
Sometimes the air is so still
none of the  bare branches move,
even cattle trucked from summer range
stand motionless in the valley:

How their brown backs shine
in the pasture where they rest or graze
on hay the rancher hauls and spreads,
his eyes on clouds from the north
alert to wind that can scavenge fields
scatter in its path weed stalks and seeds,
wind that can freeze a cow’s breath.

Meanwhile trucks whine on the highway,
Red Mountain Pass open but
their drivers chaining up
on a shoulder outside town,
bent under wheels with ungloved hands.
What we do to keep safe,
what we do for pleasure--
one man in a red shirt unpockets a smoke.

2. What the Spirit Said in November

Study cottonwood trees
touched with yellow candles
where night’s cold rests.
Listen to wind shift in the tall grass
as it lays low the last golden-eye daisies.

Touch the skin of the frozen pond
and watch small birds glean
a stubble field, then beat through
gray sky on a gust of wind
between roadside and trees. 

Do not mourn how the sun
turns away like a former friend.

Watch deer at dusk pass over a hill
browse grass among junipers
lifting their solemn heads, gazey eyes.
They do not hurry or have expectations.

When you let go of these things
you will be fulfilled.