where the rats long fed;
sweep out our shame—and in its place we'll make a bower for love,
a splendid marriage-bed fragrant with flowers aquiver for the Spring.
And when he comes,
our murdered dreams shall wake;
and when he comes,
all the mute birds shall sing.
rhododendron slick,
and now climbing into an old-growth forest whose steepness had spared it from ever being logged.
But even here,
where a good oak-hickory canopy sheltered the ridge top,
last night's rain had pounded through hard enough to obscure the tracks.
She knew the animal's size from the path it had left through the glossy undergrowth of mayapples
and now climbing into an old-growth forest whose steepness had spared it from ever being logged.
But even here,
where a good oak-hickory canopy sheltered the ridge top,
last night's rain had pounded through hard enough to obscure the tracks.
She knew the animal's size from the path it had left through the glossy undergrowth of mayapples,
and that was enough to speed up her heart.
It could be what she'd been looking for these two years and more.
This lifetime.
But to know for sure she needed details,
especially the faint claw mark beyond the toe pad that distinguishes canid from feline.
That would be the first thing to vanish in a hard rain,
so it wasn't going to appear to her now,
however hard she looked.
Now it would take more than tracks,
and on this sweet, damp morning at the beginning of the world,
that was fine with her.
She could be a patient tracker.
Eventually the animal would give itself away with a mound of scat
(which might have dissolved in the rain, too)