after days, i found your body supple,
my hands remaking your shapes, remembering,
and the nettles digging into my knees were welcome
when we settled beneath the pine.
as the wind swept over our half-bare bodies,
birds took wing and flew through the sky,
inspiring the loss of my fear of the height.
two hundred feet below, the water moved in time,
waves broken by the wind while you were mine.

we laughed after we finished putting on our clothes,
again constrained, where moments before we were free.
we were the trampled fence that we'd ignored,
we were the ground beneath our bodies, the rocks and trees,
for minutes, free like birds gliding on the breeze.

*

i've been missing for awhile, off in the wilderness taking picture of waterfalls and eating chips and salsa for lunch. tomorrow, i'm headed east to pennsylvania to play music and visit old, old friends. the writing may, therefore, be infrequent, but only for a few weeks. in any case, i will do my best.