Christopher Woods
Bearded Tree
We come to it
After a walk
Through a field
Late afternoon
Shadows closing in
Sunlight already golden.
Old tree,
Its beard scraggly
Flowing with time
The memory of souls
Drifting over the land
Having left life and bodies
Graced with hair, all colors,
Caressed, remembered, loved
But unwilling to leave
Entirely for the other place
So strands grab the old limbs
To hold on, to stay behind
In the blood red sun
Shadows crisscrossing
Fields, days, other shadows,
Even our thoughts as we pass
Beneath the tree and on
And on.
Foxes
Running with them
For a time I once divided
Into weeks
Is like a river that never dries
But goes and goes, coasting
Over shells and sand beds,
The souls of mountains
Breaking up, migrating.
Being among them
Nights in frostbound fields
Beneath a ghost moon haze,
I need to believe
They too are counting stars
And all the time between them.