dancing rock to rock
everything i've lived for
in between the rocks

my old monkey bars -
swinging down the loamy slope
tree to tree to tree

faint hope of trail
uncross branches crossed
and follow none

to imagine sleep
covered up, under covers
green bed of forest

i walk slowly
the thirty feet of concrete
to and from work

wings misaligned -
just one way left to fly
october moth

* * *

too cold to fly
so, as i wait for you
the moth waits

* * *

did the frozen moths
think that if no one noticed
they wouldn't be dead?

yellow poplar trees
i feel a draft
and they shiver

deep focus to the end
where the canyon's lost
in yellow hills