Distance digs rows of forest and someone before me,

   knows well the shape of their paths, the surviving.

      I have a need to walk into an opera, a clearing in silent

eyes, to become reckoned with. Out there, crows warn

   each other of a known Fate. Figureless and soaring.

      In sleep, the revenant stitching of trees older than valleys.

Loss was a shadow puppet before me. What it sounds like is waking,

   a clearing, a hand brushing my ear says my turn. In the night,

      a dead father’s snore finds its way back

to a daughter. The missing’s litter in cloth and cans—those catatonic

   woods. A reverie luring children away—suffering

      is only there if someone’s looking. The sun gives before

the blinds open, a mother obsessed with what comes before

   entry. Hand to the door, the eye a hole in her head. Out there,

      beasts, some say, aliens, drift time. Open

a footpath, open a door. I only listen: the crows’

   talisman in wings join the forest’s canopied

      night. There will be wolves, deer chewing

twig and grass, their eyes wishful coins. The distant orbs

   in the valley not home, not a village. The mountain-folk whisper uphill

      when I leave the quiet of bed, warmth of stove.