Evening in the Piney Woods

Evening in the Piney Woods

Long light at the end of the day
stretching between the pines
tinting the cloudless Western sky
and reaching tender rosy arms around the whole horizon.
The colors are like an old-fashioned ring,
in three shades of gold: yellow, white, and pink.

Luminous blue above is like painting on eggshell-thin china.
Chuck-will's-widow calls, and summer's last cicadas choir,
and I'm suspended like a prehistoric insect
in this amber light.
I lose the will to speak or move
owning only the still senses:
vision, hearing, the smell of the wet green land.

At this instant, I could be anywhere in time,
and if I could hold onto it
through the rising and setting
of our cozy local moon,
until the stars stitch bright needles
through the black satin night,
I would find myself in casual conversation
with a soul on the far side of infinity.

8/24/01 Dupuis Management Area, FL