By mojave
Date: 2 April 2000

In the Forest

I have hiked to this spot
for the first time 
in five years
to carve our names in a tree
and watch hawks
circle above me
on thermals
and see, 
still farther up,
jet contrails dissipate
in silence,
their makers gone
now hundreds of miles away.

(The tree is young and healthy.
The tree will outlive us.)

I have also come 
because the woods know nothing 
of longing.
It is not currency here.

Still,
I think of you
and I laugh
and I know what we have is real
and everything in me
aches
for you--
here, now--
deep
in the still-leafless forest.