reaching over a salt marsh
that invites me to hover
above the great tangle of earth
like a mote that floats
over the madness.
A bit of architecture
the forest offers of itself
surrendering its sun-bleached
cedar smell up through
my pilgrim feet,
the perfect warmth
of horizontal planks
fragrant as the wood
in a Swedish sauna where
I huddle naked, small.
Here a mallard paddles low
and straight over my head
where the willows part,
but today I don’t envy
his hurried flight.
Below and on each side
the California cord grass
is on pause like me,
reluctant for a breeze
to shiver it alive again.
And I am but a shadow
across the cedar planks,
or a pinpoint of sunlight,
a handful of dizzy seeds
soft against the air.
