Trail Cutter

Leaving here is dying,
If working here is breeze
And bough and leaf and evening
Hanging like November trees

Cut back from leaden skies.
When I look up, the ladder rungs
Of trunks, the footpath vines
That dangle from a higher form,

From platonic shades of sun,
Tibetan flags that pray
For us with living tongues,
Spiral to Thanksgiving grey

Along pragmatic ropes
Which, tied to oak trees' wooden beams,
Simulate the lumber cutter's hope
That the ends support the means.

Bugs can walk on water
Without recourse to feet:
My woods' manmade order
Owes everything to deceit,

To the monumental blue
That seems so black tonight,
To the forest's daily clue
That holds me fast in light,

To the swirling plays
The wind makes in the leaves,
To the subtle ways
I cut, and that now I leave.

June 23rd, 1993, Bedford