In a Dark Wood

I crossed the stream that had grown cloudy in the heat
of August.
I watched a trout and crawfish swim
in the shallow pool beneath the roots of a willow tree,
then followed a path into a forest of maple, oak, and birch.
When I stopped to listen, I heard a thrush in the understory
singing to his mate.
A breeze blew through the canopies
of the highest trees.
A red-tailed hawk circled the sky in wider
and wider circles.
Gazing down at the dark, damp earth,
I noticed where a moose had walked on the path before veering
off into the woods.
A spider had spun her web across the trail
between one ironwood and another.
I ducked beneath
and continued to walk, less and less sure of how I had entered
these woods
All I could think as a man who'd lived before,
but not really, was how full of sleep I had been at that moment
when I left the house.
How far away for being so near
was the mountain that rose before me.
I observed the pass
which never yet let anyone go alive
and thought of the spider that had spun
her web across the path behind me.
How to ride the air
with so much thought?
How to swim beyond the sharks
inside the lake of my own heart?

Chard deNiord