These days are gifts to those who dwell on earth

– Hesiod

Blood-orange contour smolders 

the eastern mountains     Soon

blue spreads to the horizon

then slowly shrinks     as grey

clouds float in      flourish     

and the day is quiet      A solitary 

song     somewhere     deep 

in the trees

Once     in early spring or 

was it late in the fall     edge 

of a season     evening     we heard 

a full-bodied bellow    beyond 

anguish or joy     imagined 

a bear     mouth open to the sky

Sometimes we say to each other

that howl     that ululation     

We had ridden far     my father and I     

when night came on       I was still young 

enough to mind      and wonder 

how the horses felt     

Where had we been     I can’t 

remember     As we rode home     

the moon rose     and 

the dark way     glowed