Where Worlds Shift

The sandstone path winds
between pines
where morning light
filters through needles.

The birds trill.
Wind moves through branches.
My footsteps keeping time
with something I can’t name.

Here the ferns grow thick,
their fronds uncurling
into script I almost read.

Moss writes something
on the rocks.
Each breath catches
on what might be words.

A stream appears.
I see myself at seven,
skipping stones.
At seventy, still skipping.

The water carries
all my ages at once.

I blink.
Just water again.

Limestone cliffs ahead.
In certain light
they hold more
than stone should hold.

Mastodons.
Prairie fires.
First voices echoing.

The sun shifts.
Only cliffs again.

Through a grove
where light falls
like coins through leaves.
I fill my pockets
with what won’t last.

The path loops back.
Behind me, floating worlds
collapse to forest,
stone, and water.

But I carry their afterimage.
The solid earth might shift again
with the next step,
the next angle of light,
the next breath.