Shadows dance along walls
Cold, undulating fire
Threatens to suffocate
My thoughts,—I go on walks
Outside, the golden leaves
Know how to be better.

A dormant forest sees
Balance between forces,
Ever-changing seasons,
The purposeful movement
Of critters and giants.

Is the forest moral?
Wolves know moderation
Better than most of us.
My reason breaks:
Do humans still bother
With being good
These days?

Hillsides of endless green roll
like clouds before a storm,
but they are stilled by the mountain.
And within that valley, a boy no more than what life's made of him yet:
he will go on to foreign places and make them home,
grow into a place that he does not know,
build things, and a family. And he told me of that merry place
locked into the ether,
where a teacher made honey from the bees and gave a jar to his mother,
a gift. For nothing, for they were poor and so was the teacher,
and the honey was gold in his mother's hands.