A Moveable Garden

Part of my Feb 2024 Dream Poems project.

How To Find It

A tree, its bark noticed last week, is misplaced
then noticed again, the day unfocused

that’s how it often is
focus bearing a blindspot
towards the unexpected and what
in the living world is not unexpected
when it comes down to it

you could hunt for years a saw-whet owl
brimming from a tree’s hollow
then, distracted, glance up at the call of a crow
to find that fixed and yellow eye staring back,
just there, seen

walking today, the end of a long stroll,
I turned toward the tree without thinking
about the tree and there it was, the tree
with the bark – not the owl, not yet – 

an accident waiting to happen and maybe
the tree awaited me, caught the curve
of my aimless eye suddenly and

awakened me the way that morning does:
washing the pale residue of the night now lost
and verging toward oblivion, ghostly leavings
unseen except slant

© M Wms 2024