Hug the earth close
as the moon will try to pull you from it.
It wants you to float like an unreal number
in endless digits never coming to rest.
It comes to rest in pools left behind by tides.
The stillness of the water is the template.
The intricacy of the pattern is the movement.
I’ve never not been here before.
What does time say to the other
to shake it loose from timelessness?
Leaves cover the stones
November is the season’s bones.
Leaves cover the ground
the book of nature unbound
the trees are writers out of ideas
the forest a library after an earthquake.
So hug the earth close
whisper the affirmations
-- It is always Close, always Here
    It is in All and is All --
and write them on the palms
you busy your days with
for the page lies when it lies down.
So stand it up
and mix it up
with the leaves you walk through.