[34] Refuge, Terry Mulert

When the wild land
is quiet and the female
feathering of rain
is a shadow on the red cliff
the owl calls
far from her nest
above the dry ditch
of bottles and weeds
waiting for the Earth to be
born again
with hues of winter’s rye
on stubborn fields

drinking coffee in the city
I am alone at 6am
images of raptors and elk
coursing through me
and I return to the ponds
wide open to the sky
reflecting trains
that pass on rising berms
where smoke black engines
rip through silence
that never really had
a place to go.