You search out the reason why
pen finds paper, words urgently
flowing; some burst pipe beneath
a dusty road leading into the woods
where sun barely dapples the trail
and frogs chant beneath ferns
last night’s beaver trees jutting white
candles along the river bank
trees rubbing their scraggly limbs
fracture sunbeams, tattoo your hand
the way black and blue scratches dance
onto rumpled pages in your pack
you’ve yet to discover the driving force
the /why/ elusive across the years
words snaking into lines and strophes
full of the detritus of ordinary days
like the way you drove down a road
this morning remembering the spring
trickling down through the leaves
the one you wanted to rock, line
crumbling banks with stones rounded
by years and its transparent flow
how you would leave some tumbling
over the shelves of shale to ensure
the singing would go on before
it merged into tea-dark water
at cliff’s base and you’re writing all of this
as you mechanically miss the eight deer
crossing the road, slow to wait for
the three Black Angus trying to remember
where the gate might be that they passed
through earlier in the dawning
and when you see your words bound
into books, you scarcely turn the pages
because they’re over, they’ve been
products of the past and there’s so much
more to seize and hold in your hand
like a baby bird fallen from the nest
in the windblown ash that there will
never be enough time to say why.