In the lingering hours before night
lays down across the broken ground
I walked a wide and silent path that snakes
along the shoulder of the mountainside
then narrows through the canyon’s wild parts.
The air was milky wet with three hours’ rain
incited by the day, now rolling fast
and low among the grass and wild hemlock.

Orange light, the orphaned child of weak
and distant streetlights, filtered through the oaks
and set an idle cranefly in relief.

Trees grew thicker as I reached the threshold
of the canyon, bent and draped in purple,
crooked limblike roots thrust into
the deep and secret fissures of the rock,
their branches hanging like the tattered sails
of a ship long blackened by the spray
and molding. As my vision grew accustomed
to the subdued light I noticed something
on the shadowy ridges of the hill;
it curled up from the slope and stretched out
before spreading lengthwise on the ground.
I could not tell if what I saw was man
observed in some strange mode or animal
or something else entirely.

A cold insistent wind pushed on my face
and worked into the collar of my jacket,
rubbing branches against crooked branches
in a pale rattling chorus through
the white and moon-sick valley at my back.

I hung about the trail’s scattered edges
wondering over that queer sight until
my wondering took the fullness of desire.
Thoughts of cold and wind and darkness fled,
I turned my sleaves and collar, set myself,
and left the trail for the grinning forest.

As I walked the fog whipped up and curled
in whisps and tendrils round my arms and head,
that violent motion followed by a sweet
and wild scent descending from the mountain.
Caught unawares I balked and froze;
breathless, neck-hair stiff, and fiercely listening-
Minutes passed in heavy throbbing silence..