Behind the beaver dam, the flatness
of backed water and mud pulls your step up
short. Tadpoles ripple like soundwaves.
Once plow horses plodded across this former stream
on a hand-milled lumber bridge
right here. The bones of the mill and the fanged wheel
of its blade have turned to their own graves nearby.
God is watching us through the eyes
of heron and newt.
The pileated woodpecker plies
her staccato wooden drum in kinship with us
on a dead fir snag. A sapphire dragonfly
touches down on my arm like a wish,
or perhaps a tiny redemption dressed in blue.
The horse spirits look back, rolling the cauldrons
of their cinnamon eyes in surprise -- the place
where dad showed us the very last furrow
they plowed is now a forest
full grown,
and I, even older.
Jennifer Pratt-Walter, © 2016, 2023
