for Les
The wood is entered from a settled place,
its darkness a murmur that hangs
like threads of time, vines indescribably local
yet never seen before. A pond, perhaps vernal,
seems to hold everything I do not know.
Nearby, an old dwelling without
its history, simply speaking of itself now,
its rotten boards evolving as the trees evolve,
growing purposeful, always dying.
I could live here, I think,
in this mysterious expression of myself
where he and I have already assembled
a lifetime, something consonant
with the untold depth of the pond,
with what filters through the canopy
alive with that dappled hint
of the light we both know
we have always been made of.
Susie Patlove was a finalist for the 2008 Massachusetts Cultural Council Award. Her work has appeared on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac and in Ted Kooser’s column, American Life in Poetry. Poems of hers have been anthologized in Morning Song (St. Martin’s Press). Her chapbook Quickening was published by Slate Roof.