Easterly

A moose wind rubs the moss-edged trees
and sunrise touches their bark with red;

grey mist condenses the forest’s breathing,
clouds the cone-litter beneath the pines.

Dry cold is falling from the mountain ridges,
a sea-less whisper of stone and sharpening weather,

hoarse with the crepitus of bedrock, of creaking
bones and roots straining against geology.

Time immemorial out of a dry quarter conspires
to dim the light to undeniable grey and filters it

to the forest floor, dessicated and alien, acrid,
like invented fog, obscuring the wild with change.

© BH, 2022

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