The trees are kindling fires on the hillsides.
In the telescopic eye of a vulture, I see myself,
a tiny woman walking beside a pond.

Oh, to be in the place I am: ducks floating,
pulling light after them. One skids, feet out,
wings beating, sliding in beside itself
on water so frail even light can cut it.
But it holds her up, it holds her up,

and the grass is transmitting messages
like a song which hasn't yet been written.
A minor key still offers melody. Beauty
comes to me as if for the first time, singular and shy,
a song leaking through the seams of the world.

—Jeanne Murray Walker

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