I look for trails a person leaves.
\nPlaces where the branches are bent.
\nA curl of flattened grass
\nwhere they stopped to rest or sleep.
\nOr look at the sky,
\nlike looking inside their life,
\nwhere no one memory obscures the view.
\nNot a twig, but branches.
\nClouds with their many loves.
\nClusters of snow on invisible mountains.
\nThen tracks that stop again,
\nas if they heard shouting,
\nor were listening to the throb of the wind,
\nor being still,
\nor waiting for something.<\/p>\n
Or then, if there was a sea nearby,
\nwhat direction did they take?
\nDid they walk directly to the edge
\nof the shore?
\nAre there steps to each side,
\nor did they disappear,
\nlevitate over the crest of the waves
\nand become a gull.
\nOr fall into the fathoms beneath,
\nand become a shadow in the swaying weed?
\nDid life resume somewhere after swimming,
\nand they travel back to the grass,
\nthe woods,
\na trail through the brush?<\/p>\n
I long to see other paths join theirs.
\nI want to know the person had friends,
\ncompanions,
\nthat their life was going somewhere else,
\nand they not become the skeletons of fish,
\nor clams,
\nbleached and still,
\nthe journey over.
\nDid the person love again,
\ngo back to a house,
\nwrite a song,
\nfind a war they could fight?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I look for trails a person leaves. Places where the branches are bent. A curl of flattened grass where they stopped to rest or sleep.…<\/p>\n