struck long ago by lightning
charred heart open to the sky
what doesn’t kill you
leaves you damaged
climbing a mountain to learn
what you already know
like telling the pines apart
by how they whisper
or marveling at birch twigs
etched in sunlight
on the shadow
of the neighboring mountain
and underfoot the moss cracked
like mud in a honeycomb pattern
a kind of ur-text
about cells and absence
the way a life was laid down
ring by ring in a log
or how after the rungs rot away
and the tree topples over
it’s not a ladder anymore
the bark’s long gone
there are just these troupes of rusty nails
awaiting further orders
the sky so clear your binoculars
pick out distant windblown leaves
or follow a hawk
following the ridge for miles
with the leaves down a white
clapboard church appears
with a steeple to staple it in place
between the river and the railroad
where shipping containers roll past
night and day
from this height like pale capsules
full of bad medicine
this is the trouble with all
tracks and paths
it’s time to stop following
and set your feet free
off-trail
on a careful descent
stepping from rock to rock
stopping for twisted oaks
and tall straight pines no 19th-century
logger is coming back for
though a thousand feet downslope
and you’re in pole timber
the whited sepulcher of a tip-up mound
marks the shift from ironstone to shale
through long shadows made feathery
by young white pines
footfalls mingle contrapuntally
with woodpecker taps
on a twisty back road
the tarmac cracks in honeycomb patterns
and the low sun is attentive
to every detail of mummified roadkill
its five-fingered paw
still stretched out
just past a sign that reads
UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN
MAY GOD HOLD YOU
IN THE PALM OF HIS HAND
on bare wood
in letters of faded blue
