The golden-brown leaves of the
maple tree out front, in the middle of
nowhere Vermont, are soaked with
yesterday’s rain. It is dark in these forests,
even at noon, beneath the heavied
canopy of self-renewal, drying slowly
in the changing of seasons. I am in
the solemn presence of absence within
peeking light, ebbing over the branches.
Away from everyone, I found the crystals
that the women in the cities hang from
their ears. Flawed gems, haunting –
they are deep in a long-lost cave,
carved into the stone-gray walls and
penetrating into my skull. Their red
dripping onto the ground. My neighbor
first showed me how to cut. His veins
like strands of hair at the barber shop, falling.
I grew mine out, only a fool trusts that
everything will come back. It covers my
eyes just as the moss carpets the ground,
softens our steps – conquers the untamed.
Those crystals, a deep crimson – the sun before
fading, the priest as palms are laid before the
coming of savior – inside, I know I am
left for dead. The forgotten things of the world.
Which is why I am hidden in plain-sight. On
the front-porch swing during the fires
of Autumn, the chestnut smoke and
the innocence of a baby’s nose. Etching
my name into dying oak, repeating
prayers for the wind to carry. Nothing
can hide from the church bells who beg
for admission. To remember
my guilt before promises of baptism.
The stream washes over the stone.
I skip some of the rocks; they begin a
longer journey, eroding slowly over-time.
Their tumbling over one another
resembles the passage of ourselves,
it reminds me of cold Northeast winters.
The beauty of our preparations in Fall,
knowing there will never be enough wood.
I am unsure if I will ever forgive myself
for letting this, my only, life go.