GRASSLANDER

I have walked all day among the blue bunch, rough fescue and rye

treading as lightly as possible upon this cryptogamic crust

that is impossible not to disturb.

The air a mix of sage and blue bottles and heat

that churns the mind, boils it to sweat and expels it

through the flesh so that thought

evaporates to feeling and feeling

boils away to being.

I have wandered with hope hung heavy

among the massed granite and glacial silt

wondered if time will deposit me 

somewhere half as grand

and will my path have any greater consequence 

than foot falls that churn lichen into loam.

I sit.

Amongst balsam root that in time will give way

to bitter root, then lily. 

The quail call far out beyond vision

at the edge of the audible

and I feel the gap between me and the land lessen

until that liminal moment

when the chest caves outward into the world

and the blue bunch, rough fescue and rye grow

to fill what the peopled world

has emptied.