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Back pasture, empty most of the day

Never changing but ever full of wonder

(standing looking over the fence, scared of distant barking dogs but knowing

I'm safe)

Taking summer blackberries to freeze and remember in the dead of winter

Leaving the wildflowers so I can look at them again tomorrow

Weaving the same pattern every day until it becomes a ritual

(over the creek; through the eerie, perpetually shadowed glade; digging

up

quartz rocks; sitting under the same tree)

Nobody ever comes down here to find me (they know I'll always come back)

Nobody here but me and my notebook, my book, a sandwich and a thermos of

tea

I come here every day in the summer and in the winter when it snows, I sled

down the silent hills alone, over and over