And there he sat
There he stood,
And in a gaze
I saw in him
And deep
Sensed in the spread of his iris
The fresh, chilling air
Embracing, forcing each leaf in a dance
Yes, the wind was in his eyes,
Blowing over the many-hued landscape
And whistling across the caverns ‘round the tree roots.

In his cheek was the consistency
Of bark that stops, catches,
And bark aspen smooth.
And in his brow an embracing canopy
That folds you in the larger landscape
At once for you and at once for the land,
For the order that beats in our hearts,
Each of us
With toes pressing in the pine needles
With wrists, busts in the breeze.
Here, standing in each other’s eyes.