LARRY HIRSHBERG

 

Yaak, Montana

The solid land had been mislaid; all that was left
was a bay of mist in a floating lake.
And, hanging like an echo -
the breath, the little legs running,
the torn leaf, the cracked twig.

Hard to the south, the sun revealed the road…
Barely breathing - tender neck of morning -
absolutely still beneath a scimitar of raised rock.

That blade! Slicing centuries like thread!
The morning cut free to drift,
whole groves of aspen like single leaves bobbing in its wake.

A sword, and a feather-weight reservoir,
disappearing into the south, the day.