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.