Between a mossy outcrop <br />and a bedrock mortar. <br />I watch a neighbor’s wood-smoke rise <br />toward the contrail <br />of a transcontinental flight. <br /> <br />Two overwintered bluebirds <br />peck berries from the mistletoe of a dying oak <br />whose roots dig into frost-heave, <br />decomposing granite re-composing <br />tree and shadow. <br /> <br />Atop a boulder, a squirrel has eaten <br />half a mushroom-cap and left the rest. <br />Coyote scat is full of manzanita berries <br />and fur, fragments of bone: what’s <br />left of gray squirrel. <br /> <br />I imagine I could hear the earth turn <br />its worms through soil, or maybe <br />that’s blood running rabbit-trails <br />in my ears, or else <br />news on the breeze <br /> <br />from ridges up-east and over. <br />I stand listening, till it’s time <br />to go back home. <br />Can I find a space there <br />to store this quiet?<br /><br />Taylor Graham<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/listening-post/
