THE ROAD BEFORE US

Let us travel the road before us

and enter into the mystery of trees.

Let us find the sleeping doe

attentive and aware

of the ever-wolf.  I will go

and find kindling. I will set

the fire that will engage us

and carry our heaviest thoughts

upward.  Clouds dwindle.  

Smoke trails us like a wraith.

I am caught in it. I rise

to the web of bleak branches,

to the very tops of trees.

Tonight leafless trees

are smothered with blackbirds.  

This night-smoke

becomes the blackbird

rising to its highest—

Drifting embers smite the moon.

©2011 Clare L. Martin