our campground neighbor greets the day
with songs in a voice as soft as tears
that never roll downstream

as the first rays of sun are breaching over the hills
the poplar leaves, golden and full of light
tumble towards the second week of November
the standing poplars remain as percussion
to the morning hymns

It’s the birds that wake us again
they always act in their own certainties
the acorn woodpeckers, laughing at the stashes
they are meant to forget
the shrub jays, blue flashes in the autumnal chaparral, or is it a chapel on Sundays?
the spotted towhees, whose red eyes
seem to know more than they should

we hike amongst buckeye trees,
our annual reunion, and are
delighted by the buckeyes, round as ornaments
on leafless trees with a silver shimmering bark

we hike until we are eye to eye with the ravens
who ride the currents of a warm evening
I call back in threes
rrr rrr rrr

I carry my emotions hot as tears on my cheeks
in a world that insists on cold hearts

we are amongst the condors at last
the sound of immense wings flapped once
has me stopped in my tracks
my hat falls as one condor soars above my head
how black, how big, how being
an adult means to be initiated over and over
to the same lesson until you are living its wisdom

the closer I look, the further they fly
putting between us distance
that I am trying to bridge by
straining as if for a detail in a dream
I am making sure I won’t forget

or how sea foam comes alight in a friend’s eyes
who is readying themselves for a journey
that will bring a continent between us or the sea
that is constantly breaking
in the color of their eyes