from the wind’s house
on a seat of moss
i can almost see the hospital
where Dad died
i watch a pair of ravens hurtle past
turn and hang
nearly motionless
feathers fluttering
like a pianist’s fingers
one briefly meets my gaze
a glint of obsidian
i wander thin-soled
down the thin-soiled ridge
trees chafe and moan
encumbered with their dead
one sugar maple shrieks
like a cat in heat
a cold front has come
to the bare ground
of a too-warm February
i’m standing on the long root
of a black birch
as it bows and straightens
and for a moment i think
it’s the mountain
moving under me
looking down i remember
i’ve got my dad’s bootlaces on
faded brown
as well as his red and black
checkered cap
which is how
the ravens must know me
their most regular botherer
i pile rocks into a seat
a pellet of sleet falls into my tea
the mind-numbing roar
of an a-10 fighter-bomber
here and gone
i open the centennial edition
of Gertrude Stein’s
Tender Buttons