Sometimes, a squirrel like a thought
agitates through the leaves.
Scrabbling up the papery bark
of a birch tree, almost free.
When I close my eyes,
the cool moss on the rock
against my cheek feels like a memory
I can’t recall—ice cream? peaches?
Sometimes, the wind delivers.
But there are no messages.
A gash of blue quartz
veins a boulder in the clearing,
pulses, fixed.
One characteristic of light: it reaches.
Sometimes, the wind sloughs into readiness,
silent upon the strings of the birches,
and like the deer I raise my head.