That Time of Year
There's a path that we have made, up through the hollow,
though in places only you and I would know
it is a path, and even we must follow
instinct now and then, where brambles grow
in slashes or the trails of deer unwind
in too many turnings. We've learned to go
by shape of land and slant of light to find
a certain log across the creek. Once there,
we pause, our steps on softened wood a kind
of grieving: each time we cross, we feel it stir
beneath us, some new elation in its being,
and still it bears our weight. This time of year,
up on the ridge's crest, the bare trees sing
and the winter sun stands off the south face
like a ship bound away into the offing.
We come here when we can to watch it pass.
Up here the trees lean close into the ridge,
and there's a rock ledge where we make a place
to sit. Onto the air at the rock's edge
we sweep the scattered leaves with a cedar bough
but leave untouched, in a crevice of the ledge,
a drift of leaf and seed, because we know
that under it is loam, more loam, and clay—
the slow and patient keeping of a vow
the rock has made and, making day to day,
becomes. Down in the hollow, white-tailed deer
come foraging along the creek. The wake
of our passing closes, and what is wild is near.
We know this path now even in the dark,
For we have spent ourselves in walking here.
DL
