In Morris Park

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                    For Tamar

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^{already the knowing animals are aware
that we are not really at home in
our interpreted world.
     —Rainer Maria Rilke}

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where the grid swerves off course and the numbered sequence
of streets stops making sense
               we have to find each other before we find our way
into the wild blur of woods
                               beyond city’s smoothly paved edges

where signs are useless or we misread them
so trace instead creek’s silver ripples
                               upstream where water pools and flows
under a stone arch
                                               washes white over boulders

steady pressure incising an ever-deepening groove
together we press fingertips to runic bark
               tulip poplar so tall we strain
to see where crown meets sky
                                               I point to pastel blur

cornflowers accented by bees’ dark dart
and dash to that radiant corner
               a flick in the grass we glance down
catch squiggle of snake shedding
                                               its outgrown skin

rush toward a scrawl of serpents
raveling on a rock in the sun
               they flee the long shadow we cast
fear the obliterating darkness we carry
                                               without intent

we do not mean to seek portent
for our lives in snake molt
               or bird murmur or slick stones’ ellipses
that throw me off balance
                               crossing the creek

she leaps ahead offers a steadying hand
we do not mean to get tangled in netting
               a fallen fence marking a boundary
we miss and end up at cliff’s edge
                               water ribbons below us

I can’t let my boys come here, she says
meaning this precipice
               my own boy is lost, I confide
back to the tidy street we read now
                               with forest’s eyes

notice the faintest line scribbling
across sidewalk’s white expanse
               a worm, too fine to save
our fingers would crush him
                               he must make his own way

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