Skipping Stone Sun
When the bears emerge, blinking, filling
their risen loaf lungs with
bracing blue sky
the sun is already high, skipped
across seas of feathered cloud crests
like a thin stone thrown, no longer low-angled but
flicked-winged and broken-free
softening the glazed crust as it burns a new arc
day after day, over the mountains.
Each breath is a small fire
in spring, each step
a blazing trap door
or a threshold, suspended
in the hollow bone cline
of a thermal loop. Each night
snow refreezes
under stars, under moon
waiting for the quickening of a valvular snap
as the bears churn paths
through fine sugar snow.
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