Sunlight glints on spider threads
spanning a chasm of branches.

*
Where my neighbor shot a deer
opening day of hunting season
a smear of blood, bits of fur
we'll find after winter recedes
and the arbutus blooms.

*
We stick to the earth,
whether something in us
departs or not.

*
Where you walked to the pond, along
the failing wall at the edge of the woods,
the shape of your coming and going
has yet to disappear.

*
Today, in the crown of a hemlock, a porcupine
eats a circle of bark, sap beginning to run
from the wound, sticky like honey, smelling
like overturned earth after a hard rain.

*
Kotodama is the Japanese belief
that mystical powers
dwell in words.

*
For the past week, outside my window,
a crow has been repeating your name.