three notes from casper’s bluff

a triptych

I

tonight the air is full of song. beaten uneven song. bush singing, nighthawk soothing her young urgent in defense.

a speechless warning. sharp in the air sharper in my ears. stay away she says, stay away.

a deep dense definition within the dark spaces, between each cry.

and i struggle in my human ways to find words to explain afraid that if i speak, if i move. the singing will cease.

and she will disappear leaving me songless in the night.

two

the sky is gray falling under its own weight. it pries what little light is left of the day away from the recesses as the night sounds commence.

long ago we came here as strangers to the crooks in the hills bends of the river

memorizing the voices of the spoiled thrushes, the swing of the vireo, crack of branch beneath tree dwelling paws.

seventy two times the snows have turned the woods for me and they never looked and sounded as beautiful as they do this night,

with your breath and mine hanging mist, mingling.

three

a beautiful word followed me through the day making its presence only slightly felt.

i knew it was there by the measured beating of my steps one task to the next.

by the pleasure in finding faith and faces, disarming me of me, fading pretense to peace.

would that i had noticed it yesterday or last year, and will know it tomorrow, the word rested complete, at ease in my language.

a word of journey and disappearance, and i as pilgrim standing at the greying mist of morning begin by speaking it

and it becomes real. and i become fully alive to its meaning without dictionary, in the blink and flutter of an eye.