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Open Road

I won’t have time to go over my route until I’m back in Reno, where I’ll spend a few nights at a friend’s before going the rest of the way home. Presently I’m in Frisco, CO. I hope to be in the Grand Junction area before nightfall. Thought I’d sit down with a bagel sandwich and dedicate a few brain cells to the task of tapping up a small poem, see what happens.

Open Road

Your contours lead my thoughts
  like slender fingers parting
    slightly cracked lips
      for a sigh

Your peaks and valleys invite
  my earnest exploration
    teasing the deepest pits
      of my stomach

I’ll never tire of your curves
  your long smooth stretches
    your heated breath
      against my cheeks

Posted on by EAT

Perfect Silence

The same night after I posted “note to soul mate“, I camped at the Mondeaux Flowage, a lake in Wisconsin. This involved some driving around on a web of dirt roads at dusk. The first campground I located happened to be a group campground—that was completely unoccupied that night. This poem attempts to depict, or express, a sort of “perfect silence” I had experienced at this location into the evening and during the night there.

Perfect Silence

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.

Speaking of driving around, I wanted to detail the route I took from Paynesville, MN to Rutland, VT:

When I left Paynesville, MN I continued northeast on SR (State Route) 23 through St. Cloud to SR 95, then east to North Branch, where I stopped at a Quizno’s to have a sandwich while rush hour traffic died down a bit. Then I got back on SR 95 east through Taylors Falls to Hwy 8. A half mile east of the junction I crossed over the St. Croix River, a tributary to the Mississippi, into Wisconsin. This was the day before the bridge collapse 50 to 70 miles south in Minneapolis.

In St. Croix, WI, I stopped at a gas station and fell asleep in the car for about an hour. When I woke up I looked at my maps and decided to try to get to a national forest south of Kennan about two hours east and look for a decent place to camp there. After filling up my many water bottles I got back on Hwy 8 east to CR (County Road) N at Kennan, south to CR D, east to CR E, and south about four miles to a series of dirt roads, starting with NF (National Forest Road) 102 east past a few forks to NF 106, north to a paved drop down to Picnic Point, the group campground I mentioned above.

At first light I woke, packed up, and intuitively found my way straight to CR D north of the lake, bypassing the need to return first back to CR E. This involved driving NF 106 north along the lake to NF 333, north to rejoin NF 106 again, north then east over to NF 104, and north up to CR D. This didn’t take very long. Less than a half hour.

On CR D I went east through Westboro to SR 13, north to Prentice at Hwy 8, east through Laona to SR 32, then south to a privately owned campground where I inquired after the cost of a shower.

I must have felt pretty spunky because of the shower, because instead of taking the route I had originally planned on of SR 32 south to SR 64 east through Marinette on the border of Michigan and north on SR 35 up to Hwy 2 and on east, I spun on luck and found myself zipping along a bunch of unpredictably narrow roads. At a town called Mountain (the Midwesterners who named this town had no idea what a mountain is), I went east on CR W to CR A, north on CR A to merge seamlessly with CR C, and north still to CR V, then east to HWY 141 at Amberg.

From Amberg I went north to another county road, CR Z, east across the Mississippi, which was practically a creek that far north, into Michigan, where it ceased to be CR Z and turned into CR G18, east through Carney to Hwy 41, and north to Powers, where I stopped for a sandwich before continuing north a touch to Hwy 2. On Hwy 2 I went a long stretch east along Lake Michigan to St. Ignace, where I stopped for dinner.

Here I decided I would drive across the “Mighty Mac”, the Mackinac Bridge that crosses the gap between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and west along Lake Michigan to Wilderness State Park, where I’d camp for the night. So, groggy from a full day of driving, I went south on I 75 over the “Mighty Mac”, which I think may be an exact clone of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, but painted green and white, to SR 81, east to merge with Wilderness Park Drive into Wilderness State Park to the registration booth.

When I discovered they wanted $36 dollars for a night in a tent, I changed my mind and headed back west on Wilderness Park Drive to SR 81, then south to E Gill Road, east to Hwy 31, and south to Brutus Road, where I saw a sign that said “State Campground” pointing east.

I decided to check it out and went east on Brutus to Maple Bay Road, after passing it and coming back, to find the campground a few miles south. It was pretty well packed, and I was in one of my grumpy indecisive moods. I almost stayed, but for some reason decided to drive all night. So I got back to Hwy 31 and continued south to SR 68, which took me east to I 75 at Indian River.

During the night I drove south on I 75, stopping at rest stops along the way to try and get some rest. This proved to be impossible because it was too hot and humid with the windows up, and when I put the windows down for air mosquitoes swarmed in after my blood. So I ended up driving south on I 75 through Flint to Hwy 23, south to a rest stop near Milan, where I finally managed a couple hours of sleep because it cooled off enough during the night for me to get a few hours sleep with the windows up just before sunrise.

When I woke I continued south on Hwy 23 into Iowa and through Toledo to merge with I 475, south and east on I 475 around the south end of Toledo to merge with I 75, and north a touch on I 75 to Hwy 20. Then east to Fremont through a handful of busy townships, where I stopped at a Denny’s for something to eat.

From here I went northeast on Hwy 6 to SR 2, which was a freeway, east one exit to SR 101, which was not, north into Sandusky to Hwy 6 again, and clear through every possible part of Sandusky east to just before Rye Beach, where it dawned on me the freeway SR 2 and the township hopping road Hwy 6 go in the same direction through the same places. So I got on SR 2 and headed east to merge with I 90 and through Cleveland, where there was a six or so car pile-up, to SR 91, north a mile or two back to Hwy 6, east through several townships and stoplights to All Souls Cemetery, where Nikki, a girl who committed suicide a few years back, is buried.

Ever since I planned to make my trip to Vermont I also planned on visiting Nikki’s grave along the way. I never knew Nikki, but her mother has followed my writing for a long time. About a year after Nikki’s suicide she asked me to write a poem in memory of her daughter after she saw “Unbounded”, a poem I wrote in memory of Art Bell’s (the original radio host for Coast to Coast AM) wife, who died suddenly of a heart attack while they were on vacation. I honored her request, which became a journey for me, and over five weeks wrote a poem I titled “The Dimming”, which she and her whole family loved. My process with writing that poem brought me to feel a tremendous empathy for Nikki and her family.

While at the cemetery a thunder storm rolled by a little to the south east, spattering some rain, but not so much that I couldn’t evade it by ducking beneath a black oak which grew near the head of Nikki’s grave. I hung out there playing my bansuri and wishing her spirit well for probably 45 minutes, until the storm had passed. There was something fitting about such a the storm at just that time, thunder crashing around my ears, lighting startling earth and sky.

From here I continued east on Hwy 6, feeling both uplifted and melancholy, through Andover onto SR 85 to Pymatuning Lake Road, south to a campground near the southwest end of Pymatuning Reservoir, which is split down the middle by the Iowa-Pennsylvania border.

I ended up sleeping in next morning and when I awoke, right at 11:11am on the dot, I packed everything up and got back on SR 85 east into Pennsylvania, where it turns into SR 285, east to Hwy 6 again at Conneaut Lake, east through Meadville to SR 77, northeast through Corry to SR 426, east to SR 27 at Garland, east to Hwy 6 again at Pittsfield, east through Warren to SR 59, east to 770 at Marshburg, east to Hwy 219, north to SR 346, east through Derrick City and on to SR 446, north into New York where it turned into SR 305 on to SR 417, north finally to I 86/Hwy 17, where I shot east through Binghamton to I 88, east still on cruise control to Hwy 7, just shy of the I 90 turnpike, where I’d have to pay some toll.

Now it was dark, and I meandered through Albany and a crap-load of suburbs into Vermont, and finally up to Rutland. I managed Rutland around 1:30am, where I got a room at the Travel Inn at the north end of town.

Whew!

I recorded all that for my own records because I know I’ll come back to print it up as people ask me the route I took during my trip. If you’re so inclined, this entire route can be traced through Google Maps, starting here.

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By Julia C. R. Dorr’s Grave

At the apex of my trip to Vermont I spent several days in Rutland, where I visited the grave of Julia Dorr. Later, as I reflected upon that visit, I drafted some thoughts that eventually became this poem. First the poem, then the story of how I found her grave.

By Julia C. R. Dorr’s Grave

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Friday night—well early Saturday morning—I rolled into Rutland, Vermont, after winding through various small roads of interest in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, New York, and finally Vermont. This took me another three nights of camping and four days of driving. I’ll detail my route for this portion of my trip in a later post, mostly for myself because I know that later I’ll want to remember and reflect on it.

Saturday morning I washed my clothes, dressed decent, and set off to find the grave of one of my poet progenitors, Julia Dorr. This is the whole reason for my drive. At Evergreen Cemetery I parked my rental near the office just inside the front gate, planning on inquiring after the location of Julia’s plot. But the office was closed for the weekend. So I set off walking, through a city of rough-hewn final dwelling places. Shortly up the main road into the cemetery, it forks.

Though I felt her grave would be up the left fork, which went up through a series of vales into a heavily afforested area where the headstones literally disappeared from view among the trees, I chose the right fork, after some hesitation. My feeling was that she’d be up the left fork, but my feeling was also that I should walk up the right fork. Paradoxes like this can lead to moments of indecision that can just about split you in half and have each half hopping along its chosen fork.

A couple hundred feet up the right fork a man drove up behind me, and I turned to flag him down. He stopped and I ask him if he knows the cemetery well. He informed me that he is the current president of the cemetery, and that he knows it pretty well. I gave him Julia’s full name, “Julia Caroline Ripley Dorr”, and he instantly said, “Ah yes, the Ripleys. She’s buried up by General Ripley’s monument.” I vaguely recalled that she was related in some way, perhaps the daughter, of a General Ripley who was involved in the Civil War.

He then told me that he’s both the right person to come to, and the wrong person to ask, because he only remembers the general area of the cemetery owned by the Ripleys. He pointed me in the direction where he felt my search would yield some fruit (back down and up the left fork to a particular area) after giving me a name and number to call on if I failed to locate her grave.

He told me that he remembered the monument which was erected for the Ripleys in memory of the General as being a big monument. But I think it would have helped me considerably if he had remembered that it as the largest and most elaborate monument in the park. I assumed the “monument” was one of the many large family head stones, great big rectangular blocks, some fairly elaborate, that cast their shadows over a series of much smaller headstones. Most such ‘overstones’ had engraved upon them just a single name, the family name, while the smaller headstones had the full names of the dead along with their arrival and departure dates. Some of the smaller blocks were larger, and had one name with its arrival and departure dates carved upon it, while next to that name would be another—with only an entry date, waiting.

During my search I noticed this secluded twenty to twenty-five foot tall limestone monument up a hill and well into the trees, only visible from certain angles as I climbed about the hillsides checking the names on overstones and larger headstones. But I only went to look at it after I spent about two and a half hours looking everywhere else in the area the man had mentioned. I never would have guessed that this large monument would be the one.

It was possibly fifteen feet by fifteen feet, in the shape of a Greek cross, maybe five feet in height along its naves. From the transept rose a pillar into a pair of angel wings holding a globe, which faced the sunrise. On the face of each nave was carved the full names of the parents of a given branch of the Ripley family, and behind these, along the sides of the naves that faced the same direction were the full names of their children, with their arrival and departure dates below. The headstones themselves were small and uniform and had only the abbreviated names embossed atop them, nothing more. Julia’s plot lay beside her husband’s plot. At their feet were buried five of their children.

One thing that struck me as strange was that Julia’s grave was the only one over which the grass was slightly browned. Over the rest of the plots the grass was more uniform in color.

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note to soul mate

For those of us who are for some reason pre-conditioned to seek out our “other half”—our “soul-mate”—such that we are lonely and miserable without her or him, there is a great and sudden freedom that comes from just letting go of the entire soul-mate paradigm, and all the festering desires and expectations that infest it. The moment you realize and accept that some magical other is not actually the answer to solving the problem of an ever crushing loneliness, you become open to finding other ways to deal with and address it.

This happened for me the night I left the Devil’s Tower National Monument on my way to Vermont as I camped off the beaten path alone in the last range of mountains before dropping down into and across the Great Plains of South Dakota. I have no idea why it happened, it just did. And so I wrote this small note.

note to soul mate

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Well, from Evanston, WY, where I posted my previous entry, I went east on I80 to Rock Springs. Then I went north on Hwy 191 to SR (State Route) 28, north east to Hwy 287, north through Lander to SR 798, north east through Riverton up Hwy 26 through Shoshoni, north on Hwy 20 a few miles to Boysen State Park, where I slept the night five feet from the windy waters of Boysen Reservoir.

In the morning I woke and continued up Hwy 20 through Worland, east on Hwy 16 through Buffalo onto I90, east to Hwy 14, north to SR 24, then north a handful of miles to Wyoming’s Devil’s Tower National Monument. Here I walked around the tower, an impressive site, and played my bansuri atop a hill on each side of the tower, facing the four winds, and then at the west facing bouldered base of the tower itself.

Though the park and trail were riddled with tourists, I found myself feeling secluded through my own process. On the east of the tower I played my bansuri in the woods, just out of site of the trail. I tried to play the wind, the trees, the environment. A new song came to me and I’ve been playing with it. I looked up to discover two teenage girls standing six feet from me. They had gone searching through the woods for the source of the music they heard. Faces bright and full of song, they shyly complimented my playing. They seemed to want to stay and talk to me, to find out what sort of creature walks into the woods with a bamboo flute to play for the spirits, but they couldn’t help looking over their shoulders after the sound of their names. And, after some hesitant smiling and wringing of hands, they returned to the trail.

The area was full of lava boulders that had eroded from the tower through the ages. I bounded along them like a mountain goat until I found each of the five spots that seemed right to me, then played for twenty or so minutes. South of the tower I played on a ridge top, standing on a boulder beneath a pine. In the distance a thunderstorm passed an occasional lightning bolt to the earth in complete silence. About when I was ready to leave, I looked up to notice an undecorated leather medicine bag hung from the tree I was under, just over my head. Upon seeing it I felt a tingle run through my body, head to foot. This felt significant.

With an hour of sunlight to spare I left the park and continued north on SR 24 past Hulett where it turned east, looking for a road into the national park there where I could pitch my tent for the night. I found a spot, beautiful, green, peaceful, bustling with insect and animal life. I knew that I’d find nothing of the sort the next day as I went east across South Dakota, so I relished this lush haven.

Before the sun broke free of the ridge top I had my tent collapsed and everything ready to go, and I got back to SR 24 and continued east into South Dakota to Hwy 85, a couple of miles through to the north side of Belle Fourche, where I got a truck stop shower. From here I went east on Hwy 212 through Faith, to Gettysburg, where I stopped to get something to eat. The café owners informed me that Hwy 212 was closed further east, and that there was a 45 minute detour around it. I found a 20 minute detour option. At Lebanon I went north on SR 47 to SR 20, east to SR 37, south back down to Hwy 212 at Dolland. Then east to within 5 miles of Watertown where I camped at Sandy Shore State Recreation Area, a thin strip of campsites hardly off the road.

This morning I woke just as the sun peaked over the flat horizon, large and orange, and packed up to continue my venture, east on Hwy 212 into Minnesota to Montevideo, east on SR 7 over to SR 23, and north to Paynesville, where I found a coffee house to type and post this.

I have an idea where I’ll be going tonight before I camp again, but I’d rather not say. I never know until I go. The road unfolds as I drive, and I choose my way moment by moment. Detailed plans are for people who have no faith in adventure.

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Nevada Sunset

Presently I’m sitting in an extremely noisy restaurant in Evanston, Wyoming that’s situated next to a motel that has WiFi. Just stopped to have a salad and type in a haiku I journaled last night, a few miles east of Winnemucca, Nevada.

Nevada Sunset

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

I might have taken a picture of the scene that inspired this haiku, but I was distracted by some teenagers, who appeared seemingly out of thin air, and began peeling donuts in the off ramp intersection I was pulled off at, hoot’n and howl’n all the while. I thought I was in the middle of the desert, but I guess next to a major interstate you’re never really quite in the middle of nowhere. Once I get to Rock Springs, Wyoming, I’ll leave the interstate and wend forth on the long black strip toward Wyoming’s northeast corner, which is truly the middle of nowhere. I like nowheres.

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A Strange Anticipation

One of the poets to reach me as a teen is buried near Rutland, Vermont. Not sure why I have this itch to visit her place of rest, and to walk by the home where she once lived. It’s been nagging at me for a few years now. On Wednesday I begin my long drive to the other coast, where I will pay my respects.

I think I’ll sing a couple of her poems by her plot.

A Strange Anticipation

How is it I feel the slight wind even now,
          almost breathing on my thoughts, and
the gentle green resistance of grass
          beneath my tennis shoes?

How is it I sense a partial shade
          across the hairs of my neck,
cast by the whispering arms of a fir
          planted long before my time?

How is it I see through surrounding trees
          small white clouds, folding in silent
contrast across clear blue depths, and there
          your weather beaten stone?

Though I have yet to pay my respects, I feel
          an approaching familiarity.
I don’t know what compels me to drive so far,
          just to stand by your grave.

Maybe I hope to find a touch of your presence,
          still lingering behind.
Or perhaps some small piece of inspiration,
          left twinkling in the grass.

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dishrag

There’s something remarkably freeing about the complete and utter abolition of idealized romance. Disillusionment is only bitter when, for some reason, it is still believed that the original ideal could have or should have been realized. When it’s understood down to the last fiber that it couldn’t have and very likely shouldn’t have been realized, then disillusionment gives rise to a stillness of spirit, peace of heart, and ease of mind.

dishrag

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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Perfect Moments

My first terza rima. So far as I know, terza rimas aren’t generally divided into parts like this, but the end-line scheme does follow the aba, bcb, …, yzy, zz format. However, I’m using end-line alliteration here instead of end-line rhyme. Is that wrong?

Perfect Moments

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

Also the lines are all pretty much perfect pentameters. I haven’t cared too much whether or not they started off with a soft foot. So it’s a mix of iambic and trochaic pentameters, strictly speaking.

What inspired this? Well my ex-intimate creature talked of these “perfect moments”, and claimed to have had more of them during her time spent with me than she had known over the course of her life. Well, I liked the idea and wanted to explore it. So I’ve thought back through the time we spent together and tried to figure out where and when she could have had these perfect moments, and to capture some of them—hopefully all—as best I could.

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black hole

And what made the outdoor security light stay on for a moment longer than it normally does? What made me look down when I normally don’t? I’ve never been able to grasp such moments of fortune.

black hole

hung in the darkness
darkness moves eight spindly legs
amassing darkness

But there it was, its strong erratic web strewn across the narrow path, just above ankle height. And she in the middle, upside down, about twice the size of a silver dollar. I swear I have never even heard of a black widow reaching such size.

The security light went out, and the large creature returned to darkness. I stepped backward to trigger the motion sensor, slowly, and after a few steps it came back into view again, unmoved.

Suddenly I felt a fear of unpredictable things. I felt a spider’s web when I opened the gate to the backyard I walk through to reach my cottage. And now I wondered what sort of creature might have spun it. How many of these large black widows might be lurking about the pathway? I’ve walked down this path in the dark without a light so many times with never a thought of such hazard.

That will never be the case again.

The odd thing is, I can’t easily bring myself to kill a black widow.

Once when I spent the night at a little known hieroglyph site in a California desert, a large black widow appeared above me in the night. I was sleeping on the floor of a body length recess in a rock outcropping. This rock and those around it possessed many hieroglyphic symbols inscribed long before the white man came.

Something bade me stay put and face my fear of the darkness–the darkness of night, the mystery of the hieroglyphs, of the spider that appeared above me in the night, the future. And so I did. I turned off my flashlight and stared at its silhouette in the darkness, the slightest hint of starlight reflected off its enameled abdomen.

I drifted in and out of sleep dreaming of long black legs, a twitching abdomen–dark gray chevron wide across its front, fangs and mouth parts. Each time I awoke I shone my light up and there it was, still unmoved.

In the pre-dawn light I saw it still. And after a few more times in and out of sleep, before the sun broke free of the valley’s west edge, I opened my eyes and it was gone. It returned to its place of mystery, to the dreaming. Even its web seemed gone.

And now I wonder where the connection lies between the circumstances surrounding my visit to that hieroglyphs site and the black widow last night. So many coincidences have been taking place lately, some of them of a dark, mysterious nature.

But the darkness doesn’t frighten me as once it did. It is the place from which we came, to which we return. It manifests all forms and is the well spring of infinite creativity.

I’ve been told that such coincidences may indicate that one is walking his songline. They are not ends in and of themselves, but indicators of what is–what already is. And what is can’t be expressed or grasped, but merely hinted at by these curious projections, these salient expressions of the dreaming.

Well I got some pictures of last night’s black widow. I’ll plan on moving it now that I know where it lives (under a domed piece of tiling that borders the pathway). But for the time being I’ll leave it alone and plan on having my light with me whenever I leave or enter my cottage. I might get a chance to take more pictures of it.

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On the Lost Coast Trail

I recently backpacked the Lost Coast Trail in the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park. It was a peaceful, invigorating enterprise that spanned four days and led to new insights about myself and abilities. Upon returning I found myself tapping out some reflections and revising them into this poem.

On the Lost Coast Trail

I’ll walk now, on my own.
My legs are strong,
  my back sturdy.

I’ll heave this pack and learn.
The trail ahead is long
  but I understand now.

Each day out I’ll greet the dawn,
cook my meal in stainless steal
  and drink strong black tea.

The past is over.
Nostalgia is but a hollow wind,
  and I a new-grown wood.

My soul was never in your arms,
but in the high up leaves
  of swaying alders,

and in a stone moved loose
as I strode to rustle,
  roll, and bound from sight.

And again in the call of an eagle,
soaring below as I hiked
  into the haze of its canyon.

At night the stars will sing,
and I’ll listen. In time
  no thought will come of you.

I feel now my heart purling
down ferny creek beds
  to join the widest freedom,

and sifting through branches,
up storied hillsides,
  each rooted thing alive.

I’ll never pass your way again,
for I have unlocked my cage,
  and the trail unfolds before me.

Up until now It’s always taken someone else to motivate me into going backpacking. This isn’t because this isn’t what I wanted to do. I’m not really sure why this is. Maybe a lack of confidence in my abilities, that I could go out into the wilderness on my own lugging around a heavy pack and actually enjoy myself.

And enjoy myself I did. In fact, I went a lot further and with greater ease than I would have guessed possible for me. It looks like my several walks a week over the past year of no less than 2.5 to 3 miles has changed my biology some. It used to be very difficult for me to hike even two or three level, or soft grade, miles with a pack, but now I find I can hike six rugged up and down miles, pressing through underbrush and crawling under and over fallen trees with relative ease. I’ve changed in the past few years, and until now I couldn’t have grasped how much.

On my first night I stayed at Little Jackass Creek, about six miles in using a fire-road shortcut I know about. Turns out this is a hot spot for week-enders all around. When I got there, there was only one official campsite left (flat with enough cleared ground to safely operate a camp stove without setting everything ablaze). And a few more sets of people showed up after I did. The second night I spent at Wheeler Camp, four plus miles north of Little Jackass. There is a great lookout between Wheeler Camp and Little Jackass from the top of a flying buttress cliff face called Anderson Point that would terrify an acrophobe senseless. From here you can see for miles both up and down the coast, and of course several hundred feet just about straight down to tidal rock reefs below. The third night, about six miles south of Wheeler Camp, I spent at Anderson Creek, which was satisfying because I was the only person in the area that night. And the next morning I hiked the long way back about six miles to Usal Beach.

And so begins a newness of life that I hope will thrive vibrantly even in the face of certain death.

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Front

A friend asked me to write her sister a birthday poem. So after getting some information from her about details pertinent to the birthday person in question, this is what manifested.

Front

for Rachel

In the distance clouds amass
thunder rolls faintly through the air
In the fields an apple tree lifts
jeweled leaves anticipating dew
In the afternoon sun a rosebush lifts
buds to greet the coming storm
All around a whisper rises up
as oaks and pines chant the nearing rain