When the damp strips of cast-off bark lie slack
like leather tongues on the old boundary stone wall
and the rabbit tracks leave an icy staccato in the snow
I tire of myself
sitting hours at my desk
and let myself be drawn by the cold hazy sun
out into the pathless woods
where stout trees stand half-dressed
draped in damp moss to the north
but bare to the south in half-naked anticipation.
There is a place where water seeps slowly past to the bog
with stones large enough for stepping
and a single Japanese multiflora rose sinks its thorns into my coat
as I walk by to enter the stand of white birches.
Nearby are vernal pools
charted by my weekend hiking partner
who photographed and registered the sites
when he got wind of a developer
who was going to build eighty-four houses here.
Past the birches the soils get sandier
there below the snowcover
just perfect for the endangered Eastern Box turtles
who plod around there
some with expensive radio antennae
so the developer might know
where he may and may not dig.
I recall the neighborhood meeting
earlier this week
when the town planner announced
that all these woods
and the bog too
and the vernal pools
and the turtles
had been purchased by the city
as conservation land
except for a handful of building lots
out on the edge along the road
all this would remain more or less
as it is now
and I wonder if anyone told the land
it was given a reprieve
or if I was the first –
that the turtles can relax
the coyotes and toads
can count on returning
to their hunting and breeding grounds
another season
the saplings can continue to stretch
in the shadows of their giant forebears
and when I tire of myself
and this great disjointed world
threatens to pull me apart with it
I will still be able to slip off to this place
where the strips of bark lie slack on the stones
and the damp moss clothes the sturdy trees.
by Michael Favala Goldman