What Goes Always Slower

Oh the soft halos of light, oh the briefest rain.

We count four crows, forgetting we brought a camera.

Wild morning glories in the shadows of staghorn sumac are like a first kiss, like a soft kiss at the end of summer.

And the burdock's thorny purple blossom does not resist the sliverous moon.

Nor quartz-colored birch trees bending over hidden springs off West Street.

The crab apples blush near their stems, and rabbits wait until we are almost beside them to dash away.

Oh this moment and no other.

Clouds that gather - stupendous towers of orange taffeta cumuli - and drift slowly east, at least twenty miles away.

Turkey feather, blue jay feather, and feather of a bird whose name I do not know.

And fox scat.

And old trailheads that only a handful of us now remember, hidden in bracken, winding deep into stands of maple.

I slow down and stop when I see the moon off my shoulder.

God is what goes always slower.

The brook sings a little passing beneath the road, and the chickadees sing as night comes on around them.

And the congregational church, and the old school, and the cattle who come to the fence to watch me go.

How my heart quickens like a top in their glances.

In the tall grass where the road turns, my heart quickens.

I remember ten thousand nights like this one, and no night better than this one.

There are so many roads in the world and this is the one I am on.

There are so many paths, and this is the one I am a prayer upon.