rabbit at the yard edge
still as stone

fading into dusk
awaiting something

or outwaiting it—
I wasn’t prepared

for the silence here
awaking suddenly

to the crack of wood
under duress

holding my breath
listening

as the whole forest
surged around me—

there is no such thing
as empty space

I know this by how
night swallows this house

the knock-kneed pines
and the flooded fields

beyond them
the very earth

falling away
the curvature

of horizon
endlessly advancing

as an unbroken wave
as the hook of a talon