this, my heart in
willowed movements,
now – us as one,

like a vast and open atrium
our time shrouds me
(on the scale of Earth)

invoking incantations
like a periphery of life
as I let it pass

extant and severe;
all of this is you, like
mapping the aftercrush

at the edge of summer
your voice calls to me in these
woodlands of lake and marsh

becomes the sunder of
my onyx devotion
an open realm, a ridge

of beige that longs for the
russet quiet of these merewinds
as corners of doubt

and trust are vanished
in the virgin merge
of aspen, elm and moss –
the night has gathered us
collecting our dreams

© K. James Ribble