Ex Libris

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By the stream, where the ground is soft
and gives, under the slightest pressure—even 
the fly would leave its footprint here 
and the paw of the shrew the crescent 
of its claws like the strokes of a chisel 
in clay; where the lightest chill, lighter 
than the least rumor of winter, sets the reeds 
to a kind of speaking, and a single drop of rain 
leaves a crater to catch the first silver 
glint of sun when the clouds slide away 
from each other like two tired lovers, 
and the light returns, pale, though brightened 
by the last chapter of late autumn: 
copper, rusted oak, gold aspen, and the red
pages of maple, the wind leafing through to the end 
the annals of beech, the slim volumes 
of birch, the elegant script of the ferns ...

for the birds, it is all
notations for a coda, for the otter 
an invitation to the river,
and for the deer—a dream
in which to disappear, light-footed 
on the still open book of earth, 
adding the marks of their passage, 
adding it all in, waiting only
for the first thick flurry of snowflakes 
for cover, soft cover that carries 
no title, no name.

© Hugo Williams