passing overhead
clouds with their bottoms clenched, rain
on parades elsewhere

so much depends
upon a green pencil
fitted snugly between
the blue and the yellow

upon a line drawn
across a page
where the sky
and sunburst clay meet

— as neighbours
who smile and wave
without names
or words exchanged —

upon a silence punctuated
by shafts of pine
shaved close by winding
laneways into storyteller points

Let me fall
Deeply into the heart
Of the wanderer,
Under the dappled skin
Into the belly of the thing
Heavy and warm;
The hermit and the outcast
Is met in me
By the stomp of a hoof,
The shifting
Of weight
As he steadies himself;
I look down at my feet
Aware of toes and heels
Colliding with the ground.