Idle eyes watch my father leave,
nimbly, to climb
the Pisgah pitch that takes up time
he's got a world of, making speedy retreats
to ungrassy marked morns.

Stretched out in the elbow tree's crook of arm
he sat all day, watched air sag
like a heavy hive dreading winter.
Something shifts inside of me as he shaves
a walking stick of second-growth oak.

The ocher hours of daylight whittle down
the stick's shadow and his own
behind crinoline clouds. Sun-drenched
a rock marks the hour, dissects
the quality of life and light that draws close.

Against woods stars are thrown out at night,
spin across a western staircase
where species dwindle in rainforests
that mourn their own endangered ones.

He's alone except for the voices out of time
swarming around his head like male bees
trying to escape the queen's femme fatale.
I almost hear the brittle talk diverse as cold.

The sun staves off boredom, takes another route,
pulls up in sequined trains coming to an abrupt stop.
The leaves think they have somewhere to go, and
start to fall by clear trout ponds where he hums.

His bonfire rages at twilight and into the night
where a granary of stars rise above water,
spreading from edge to edge where he naps.

Sleep tosses dreams of strong white steeds
that race breast to breast in harder times.
Their shoulder blades twist manes silky
in ribbons of puffed air.

He awakens thankful for early hours,
passes time once again,
taken by the gorges from the mountain
that possess him.

At points unknown my vision blurs blue
between the distance of when
men are coaxed back from the dead
at a moment's notice. Startled my eyes stave
off my heart's suspicion for a brief time longer.

The vision stops and Pisgah has become a porcupine
that bristles light gold and in unleashed fury flings
the wind to dissipate.

I sit alone in the dark and watch
dewy petals quiver,
curl inward into the slender pistils,
turn to wombs of calyx retreating,
until light becomes nothing left,
but a small mound of earth
and sun
and moon
chasing each other
from corner to corner of bushed life.



�2005 by Sarah Wilson