I am someone who never
made it to
the forest,
turned back by winter's
grit,
headed off by the river's
cold pebbles of glass.
Tremendous, angry, swelling
and shattering the ice:
a
mote before my destiny,
a
gate of rock.
I know that far off,
in the forest, gold
dapples
dance, in and out of leaves,
to the
happy song of birds.