Sleeping in the Forest
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts
her pockets full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before,
a stone in a riverbed,
nothing between me
and the white fire
of the stars
but my thoughts,
and they floated light
as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees.

All night I heard
the small kingdoms
breathing around me,
the insects, and the birds
who do their work in darkness.

All night I rose and fell,
as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom.
By morning I had vanished
at least a dozen times
into something better.