Pressed to skin, 

the granite shelf is like a fossil.

Trees stand, some charred, some spared.

Dead ones scatter like thoughts half‑forgotten.

 

Cold river wind is clear as glass

and worth closing my eyes for.

Warm rain on bare shoulders –

nothing finer – 

and, on the branch above me,

crows gleaming in black.

 

Leaves curled, delighted,

one or two descending –

a raw line down the bark

as if the trees remembered

when there were farms and fences

and they were the edge of them.

 

Fresh sap tips the pines,

green glaze evades the grey of morning.

 

I lift a needle, still warm

from the tree –

and hold it to my senses.