Where I shall dwell and slumber.
A short night crawls onwards as a blue intrusion;
a virgin sky, beneath a canopy, dense, huddled
like dumb, muddled giants, in endless rows of silver.
doe-calls sound low, flatly— I do not stir, sigh, nor rise,
by fern, felled pine, dipping ponds, slick with scum,
that ripple, by brooks, trickling, faint over pecked-boughs
that echo for miles and for miles.
Hallowed hordes of birch, amicably aligned,
veil gleaming sunlight, carrying new rainfall willingly
with outstretched arms, limp, high above slick muddy fur,
cold amphibian skin, corvus-caws, raw within the air,
laden with smoke, peppered, swirling upward like
benevolent apparitions, drifting.