——–—for Spencer Reese

Then one day I
went for a walk.

Walked down to the
kingfisher creek.

It had been two
years, maybe more—

down I counted
the many steps

past the wood duck
ponds. Late April.

The spring peepers
sang—Pseudacris

crucifer cru-
cifer—from moss

logs and willow
mulch, from cattails

low and high all
around these trees.

Their brown song rose
and fell in little

gasps. Sycamore.
Sassafras. While

a goldfinch pulled
a slender thread

there, height to height.
There is no more

story to tell—
except I had

not died. And
one sound I heard,

along the small
wing of creek, I

still cannot name.
I seldom speak

of such things, though
I’d come so far

to hear it there.
Was it my soul?

What do I know?
The sound the wind

made, deep in those
trees. Cottonwood.

Birch. And the leaves
utterly still.

 

 

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David Baker’s latest book of poems is Whale Fall (Norton). He lives in Granville, Ohio.