reading in the woods
book open to the sky
wandering snowflakes
vanish into the text
which is after all
mostly white space
something like a cloud
downloading more cloud
a woodpecker taps
a dead tree creaks in the wind
a hunter’s trail camera
wears a cap of snow
i practice solitude
one day at a time
for how in the holy
hell of other people
could grief still surface
its ancient ice
where in the limbo
of this floating world
could a bear blank as death
still find footing
how in god’s name
is anyone not yet numb
i close the book to preserve
its idea of order
from all these freelance
asterisks and daggers
untamed annotation leading
nowhere but here