Separation

river in November light between bare woods and mountain

Mind the gap they said
and I didn’t. There’s
a storm wind but
no storm. Children
play in the distance

or maybe fight. Don’t
mind me I murmur to a deer
trotting past while I type
this on my phone standing
still as a tree at dusk

just vibrating a little
from a Swainson’s thrush
on his yearly trip north.
I’m mindful that everything
human in this hollow
comes from the gap
between the mountains

but to the birds it’s all
one ridge—a high way
made of wind and forest.
To mind the gap means
to keep going.