I-88

The long shadows of winter,

of bright, white birches;

their gnarled and arthritic fingers stroke the sky,

reaching for a sun that barely rises before it sets.

Other trees, gray and patient, stand waiting. 

Their gentle sway suggests no hurry.

They trust that new buds will come soon.

But the white birches have an anxious gleam.

Creeks are frozen into miniature glaciers –

rocks and fallen limbs scattered in silence,

like the limbs of drowning men.

In another season, the precocious creeks 

are kinetic in the still woods.

In another season, they are renewal,

carrying the tired and broken bits of these mountains away.

But even the creeks are silent.

Only the white birches refuse to accept the patience of winter.

Only the white birches reach for the coming spring.

© Jeff DeBellis, 2013

Birches in Winter
Photo by Axel Kristinsson
from Wikimedia Commons

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