Day 4: "There is a knack to flying. You must throw yourself at the ground and miss." -- e.e. Cummings

After you left, I let the Woods Speak for You

We landed here swollen in belly and
mind; threw our backs into it—
cleared the land until it was tamed into
rows.  But the perimeters, those dark woods,
push in, gathering back what we’ve claimed.
Some nights, when the moon pools through bubbled glass,
thin walls seem to fall away to let in
a chorus of coyotes.  Their song feels close and permanent.
As if all that we’ve hatched down and sorted into rows
will be dug up and reclaimed by morning.
As if my loneliness has finally
found a voice—a duet to sing against
the moon’s haunting silver pool. You should have
never taken the work.  There was enough.
On that last day, driving the oxen up
the steep climb toward Freestone where the tunnel
would collapse and take your life, you turned back
and waved.  Your hand white, like a flag
an offering toward what would pursue us
for so many stitched together days.