Gray #1

Willow bends to stream; crane soars to cloud.
What world is this? What time, what day?

In wind, our figures sway a moment bright,
then mottled gray we turn, and still.
This forest night has no memory, cannot retain
wandering prints or wayward hands.

Day, rain, night, wind, wake, sleep:
in light but once and gone forever gray.

Gray #2

We laughed in the sun
with cares thrown to wind
and dust rising in the east.

No one can know this moment,
that memories flood the eyes
and that we cannot express
the dust between us.

In the graying twilight,
a horizon of black specks,
of birds scattered to night,
someone is always coming—
death, the apocalypse, sleep.

I will carry you, if you need,
back to the campsite, or
toward black mountains
rising before us in the west—
if you choose, I will carry you.