Deep within the mountains a valley of green
In summer city of insects and towers of purple and
Yellow with the bees and butterflies preoccupied
With the joy of scent inspecting each door to find
The sweetness of living as the day descending
Sending rays through the spruce like some sort
Of king reaching for his laborers carelessly finding
His mark fallen short as the sunset frozen in
Lines of color spat white with roaming clouds
Yet the river gurgles even in the night and the song bird
Sings into the darkening hours a deafening cry
Hears a call back from some distant neighbor
“Will we survive the reckless night?”
As the howl of the mountain lion echoes granite
Sends a shiver through the ancient spine like
Some sort of expanding as the rooster calls the day
The lion births the night roaming silent paw
Across the nestled needles cracking
Sticks and pretend you are asleep because
Not even one eye on the ceaseless twinkle of
The stars will break your fear, wandering
Lonely as a deer in the midnight meadow
Head transfixed above the gas of space, the twist
Of galaxy and the silence of the forest leave me
Breathless, I hop from star to star like bees
Buzzing from flower to flower myself opening
The doors of sweetness, that unattainable nectar.
--I fall asleep in the meadow and wake to find the
Sun rising above another day and hear the cry of those
Same song birds “We have survived!” in soft sweet notes.