1.
From the trees beside me
a hawk emerges,
falling horizontally
toward Bradley Falls.

This deep glen is close-in
to my skin. I take it
so, returning
to squat down, unclothed,
by the cliff,
watching hawks hunting
or playing, flying
below.

The beginning itself
of the valley,
Bradley, with abrupt beauty
falls from one pool
two, three hundred feet
—an easy reach—
down to Cove Creek.


2.
In summer,
the green surface of these mountains
becomes a montage of photographs
of trees.

I imagine myself in different homesites
behind those huge arrays
of subtle movement,

just beyond a sheet
of trees,
or along a line which
indicates a stream,
or by the base of a tall cedar
halfway down the picture
just across the opening
before me.

Those sites burn within me:
a feeling like love,
a longing for it.


3.
The sun here,
scattered through hickory and walnut,
is not intense enough
to color my paper skin.

It probably shines, white
through the leaves.