Lost in Space


One Autumn I strolled with strangers
Beneath crab apple and fuzzed quince trees
And asked,
 "Do you know what this is?"
Their replies,
Surfed the cooling winds,
Mischievous hand ruffling a cat's sleeping back,
"Perhaps a pearapple?"

Meanwhile clouds shuffled overhead
Scent of apples,
Fermenting in the patching sun,
Buckeyes dotting the ground,
Begging to be palmed and pocketed.

It struck me,
I once considered this day holy,
Week after week,
Year upon year,
The beauty of holiness revolving around
Saturday,
Shabbat,
Sabado.

And more sacred still,
Those bound afternoons of trails beckoning-
Of cedar and cataract
Multnomah and Oneonta
Oxalis and Trillium...
Rigid hours softening
Into seasons and senses,
Time put back in its proper place,
A salmon come home to spawn.


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