Valuation

Valuation

This poem has no purpose. Instead 

it floats on needle-spun spider trails 

cast

and unmet

as if to honor every try.

It feathers twigs out of time

and beards stones without witness.

Unhurried

it burns 

at the pace 

of lichen.

Snow falls on it, a collaboration of 

exquisite, unrepeatable forms

perched among blades of meadow grass.

It is not meant 

to stand out

nor meant

to last. 

This poem has no purpose. Instead

it drifts across sphagnum and spruce bark

a spell

unfolding

as if to honor it all. 

Like a forest

it is honest. In it

lynx stalks hare. Ermine hunts vole. 

Goshawk winds between trees

scattering squirrels. 

Without explanation, it

tracks bear toward a dream.