Passage

In colluvial dreams 

we poke at the edges

of the thin membrane that separates

us from God

as though there is a weak point

that we might pass through

The back and forth of the whip-poor-wills 

ping-pongs through the canyon

and the wind plays the walnut leaves like a xylophone

Somewhere beyond our limits a bobcat cries 

and the rain begins to fall in large drops 

that seem to rest on the rocks forever

In the narrow floodplain, a deer exhales

as the sun pushes its light over the low ridges

Once again the night turns us over to the day and we rise,

slowly, toward morning

                     

                          Smoke Hole Canyon, 7/7/2011

© Jeff DeBellis, 2013

South Branch, Potomac River
Smoke Hole Canyon, West Virginia
Photo by Jarek Tuszynski, Wikimedia Commons