Before Dark, and After Read online

  The moon reflecting in her eyes mirrored the possibility

  as I tightened my grip, refusing to let go.

  ***

  Going Home

  What waits beyond

  the hill in the entire

  unlit land of open fields

  and dark woods

  is nothing other than

  a place to come home to.

  Deer stand frozen

  alongside the road,

  eyes liquid green

  before the car’s passing.

  The fields absorb starlight

  as the woods absorb the fields,

  while just beyond the far window

  a light warms my door.

  ***

  Before Dark

  The moment fire took hold

  the doe stopped dead in the drive

  as flame turned to gold

  consuming debris in her path.

  She could not have foreseen

  (despite tracing my prints from the road)

  someone coming between

  herself and this place.

  Tail flicking, reluctant to pass,

  she yearned to reclaim what was hers—

  a last impression in grass

  now filled like a grave in the snow.

  I watched her watching fire,

  each of us waiting, at rest,

  until she turned from desire

  and stepped lightly afield.

  (I see her at twilight

  enter the gloom of deep woods,

  leaving a trace to be tracked into night

  or forgotten.)

  ***

  Afterglow

  On this plot of untilled ground

  we call a garden, I wait

  and watch the ebbing embers.

  The moon is nowhere to be found

  as cold impends to penetrate

  the warm aura that shelters

  my limbs. To be sure,

  I rake the ash-cool coals

  until flames rekindle and stir,

  flickering in mirroring windows

  down the dark and quiet street

  —all the while creepers

  and crawlers teem in the soil

  undisturbed beneath my feet.

  Time comes to end the day’s toil

  when, putting foot to hayfork,

  I pitch the tines and stand at ease,

  at last fulfilled with work,

  and listen to a chorus of peepers

  in the dark beyond the trees.

  ***

  The End

  Thank you for reading