North Woods (2024)

I'll wait: not

like some fanged or

taloned thing,

but like drumlins lain

regiment on cold plains,

the last bullfrog rasping in

the wood, or a

silken arm of driftwood

driven upright

into barren sand.

And I'll be patient: not

like orb weavers at

the center of iron-clad

webs, but casually radiating

like the tannined fingers of

early-morning frost, or a fiddle-

head in an erratic summer,

awaiting its unfurling.

If you don’t follow—

not how every slack-lipped trout

pursues its reflection in a minnow’s

back, but like roots devising their

own way toward nurturing ground—

I’ll move along slowly,

never saddened, and

so very happy to

have traveled the

clearest path and

been the healthier

for it.