in the night the mist came stole our valley – left nothing but the sound of sea where forest and hill should be over tea we discussed the matter my dragon breath billowing with the breath of trees huddled close against the starkness of all-sky from deep within the mist above the pushing sea birds…
beneath the thinning of the sky,beneath the stars thathave receded one by oneyielding their light to day,beneath the swim linesof swallow and ibis and goose,the mist has come –drifting across the field,hovering light over the damwhere heron stirs the seasonsone careful footfallat a time.
mist waits low on autumn fields tangled in grass heads brittle as bird legs and bleached of seed. (in and through the pinking sky small wings have purred and wheeled, quickened the day, carved shadows from light) but heron stalks the morning, swirling silence with each careful footfall.
and though it be this morning rises salt and cool like ocean breath and lays low across hills, calling mountain and deep forest valley to its mystery. claiming both sunlight and shadow as its own. still i am here, claimed and unclaimable, while geese wade steady on fog wings their beauty ripping the sky.