Fall

 

Just now, under the aspen tree, you saw a spark

or a sunlit flash of wing 

and thought of flight, and wonder

and then, as your eager wind spun to meet not flame, nor feather

but tree, and leaf, and endings,

you looked down.

It was almost a relief to fall, finally, and to land, not

where you’d expected

but gently, and with little fanfare

into these arms of dirt and bone, 

caught like a drop of shivery light

and held like smoke or a gossamer web

between the dream’s incantation and the bright fall of its form

to what waits beneath, and the remembering that whatever is caught 

must first let go.