The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

LOSING

The sculptress comes in the night
works in white and lays herself
over sagebrush, trees and rocks.

I learn again that she is master
of design and beauty.
I look back at my tracks
see the blemish left
in the softness.

 stop at a baby tree
and study the branches
each with an equal amount
of trickled snow.
My finger flicks a tiny limb
into a bare imbalance.

I stand for a moment
feel the warming sun on my hair,
listen to a bird I cannot see
wonder what he is saying.
Crying perhaps for a kingdom
pushed towards extinction.
Warning that our instincts are dying,
that our culture will disappear
like the snow 
 I just flicked away.

He is a meadowlark
his song has not changed
in my fifty four short years.
I know he'll not trade wisdom
for an easier way.

I walk on
leaving Nike tracks...