falling into the open
mouth of silence
vulture shadows
circling among boulders
of off-white quartzite
grown long in the tooth
fingers of ice linger
in the afternoon shadow
on a rock-walled well
where my face looms
among the far more
circumspect trees
some of whom are dead
but still standing on wind-
toughened roots
others yet to succumb
to infestation or pestilence
late frost or drought
here in the east
we can rarely climb
out of our own lives
one cannot vanish
into the thin air afforded to clouds
or the eyebrows of insomniacs
those who like it cold
have nowhere to go but north
we’re all migrants now
and our first green is in uniform
an antispring of plants
no native bug will touch
descending the mountain
i weave through a thorn scrub
wrought by forestry
and trillions of dollars
swifter than thought
encircling the earth
the silence broken
by a blue-headed vireo
singing his slow dream