I enter her,
but soon I leave.
I still remember the day I
discovered the downed trunks
affording me dry crossing into
her domain. Finding them
was the fruit of weeks.
It has been months since my
last visit, and her trees are
laid bare by fall. Her leafy paths
might now escape the notice of
one unfamiliar, but I remember
them as they were before, and
again they open for me.
Through their daily choice
of surroundings, many call her
their home without the use of
speech. Today they are asleep.
I spy not even a sparrow
from my looping trail.
On this morning, she is all mine.
Perhaps I lied, for I am greeted by
the battered face of a rusted sky
blue automobile peering from
a gulch, a stranger here like me.
Her stream lies deep in its bed,
exposing along its walled bank the
crowded, naked roots of an oak;
I wonder if it will outlast me.
And so I have left,
as soon as I had entered.