Black Water Woods

 Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

 

 

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfilment,

 

 

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

 

 

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what it’s

name is,

 

 

is nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

 

 

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

 

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

 

 

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it