The High Field
What I thought of as solid rock gets lost
here in silent dense morning fog
of a mountain field where my feet
are out on their own among grass and stone
Yet sunrise off a peak ignites the air
dazzling through mist and skin and I can
hold nothing back from this volatile edge
The whole breath of me in doubt I float out
to watch my own cheeks and ears turn lucid
trees and cliffs above begin to shimmer
alive as chattering birds until
in the climbing sun I can breathe again—
the way a steam-vent shoots through basalt
into clear air and yet afterward
leaves not a trace in the volcanic stone