This pedlar in impatient thoughts

travels light but burrows down, heavily

down, and down and down again;

to the parsonage of promise, wall-papered

in the sweat of dreams.

 

The days, carefully patented against

her own times, roll out

like dried tobacco leaves, the inhalation of

a promise, made, kept,

broken, and made again.

 

Pencil sketch clouds smudge

a looming graphite across the vast skin of sky.

The forest, sotta voce, stock still, looks

nowhere but down to the nourishing dirt,

kneels up to the humming heavens.

And, for all this cantabile chorus,

throats out a steely enervation,

where none but she can hear the silent praise.

 

She grapples in morning still

and shivering, licked up from bowls

of her own gratitude, there

to shimmer hints of the new,

bridal day.