The air’s been let out,
hardly any birdsong heard,
the bare bones of earth show.

November sun breaks
weakly on the cold river —
everything changes.

Quietly blooming
like sunsets, seashells, stacked clouds,
deep forest fungi.

Young deer listening —
ears alert, crunching acorns,
cold coming on quick.

Antlers kept above,
he swam across the river
and disappeared fast.

Unbothered by us,
geese congregate riverside,
preening with shadows.

Clouds like a Sunday
pull over us as we walk,
criss-crossed in the sky.

We set our watches
to the heartbeats around us —
sun coming in and out.

Sun caught in maples
on the first of November —
the chill comes in quick.

A nuthatch honks and
hides in the pines as we pass,
the gingko, pleading.

Sun dogs overhead
while the gingko holds its leaves
as a third false sun.

Red in the sunlight,
wall-screw moss grows in soft lines
like a universe.

The path disappears
behind us as we’re walking,
we never notice.

It’s coming undone,
the tree that lost all its leaves,
shadow in daylight.

Slanted in the light
at the evening river,
four glowing oak trees.

We’re swallowed by it —
the clouds making a bright sheen
on the wide river.

Totem in the woods,
Beech tree carved with initials,
hearts fused in the knots.

Body smooth as stone,
neck like a flying kite tail —
sandhill crane in fall.

The curtain of night
closes on the old forest
you and I walk through.

At the bridge’s edge
we’re thrown into the river
by long warm shadows.