Steven Carter

Illness

Grapes on the tree of night, clumps of stars threaten to fall, tender and ripe, into my arms. But no: this is the hour of the wolf when, glancing up now and then, I walk through day-friendly woods: every shadow a beast, every sound the still, sad music of death.

Flickering on and off through the pines and tamaracks, a white light across the lake: some sort of being perhaps, keeping its own counsel, even as I'm sorely tempted to bounce prayers off the glass ceiling of heaven.

No, there isn't an end to these woods, not even when, grudgingly, dawn makes a house call.

secrecies of words
soundless wings—
a snowy owl