Exodus

     We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each
           product and influence of the globe,
     We have circled and circled till we have arrived
           home again, we two …
                                  from “We Two, How Long We Were Fooled” by Walt Whitman

Silence shatters like glass on what passes
for a horizon. No more wave-shudder, no road-tilt. The journey
ends here. Your legs vibrate. Blood staggers to your fingertips. All wheels
have stopped at last. From some crook-back tree, a rasp flickers.
You smell old lightning. An azure butterfly
claps once, silently saying home. Remember: We are all.
     We are snow, rain, cold, darkness. We are each

 an element made clean, to rub against and make light
in the falling shade. Glacial-white, a rind of moon
balances on the distant peak, the valley taunting it
to slide down its flanks, nestle in its recesses,
then roll back up again, chase after the sunken sun,
ignore its poxed face without a backward glance,
     product and influence of the globe.

The present defies itself. Now
never really is. Gone at once. Always spent. Look
at the grasses, the clouds that morph and bulk and shimmer.
Transient, sentient as the river, the restless rocks
seeking a hungry sky through unfocused eyes.
And you. Stretch up. Capture what you can, while you can.
     We have circled and circled till we have arrived

at some agreed-upon place, as this pool of shadows
washing our ankles and knees. With our hands, we shape
a structure, a building, a lodging-place. We are fire, earth, star.
We are hawk-breath and gold. We are pollen, free-floatinig,
ground down beneath shoes. We are the wheat
that fills each other’s mouth. We nourish each. We are
     home again, we two.