Unclaimed World

I wonder where the rain makes the day new, where fallen leaves mold and tangle into unfamiliar forms. I have come to the forest so I might hear my voice, with no human voice to guide it.

From the top of the ridge I see the Earth stretch out, highway hugs the curved hills. My view free of bare branches, limbs lingering up, mounting the distance between the ground and auburn sky.

In the deep hollows there is only what the forest makes, a world burning, a world renewed, and I am captive of the stillness, drawn to the perfection of each rock and tree and leaf.

Tracing my way back home I become lost where light is cut by birches and pines scraping sky above me. And when the stream’s stream finally leads me home, I turn to look at the unclaimed world I leave, tangled behind me in the last light.


This poem was published, in a different form, in Limestone: A Literary Journal . University of Kentucky Press, 2001