Ephemerida

You can have your brittle palms

Rattling in the wind off the gulf.

Give us sunlight in the ice.

Are we not warm-blooded?

Give us frigid silence in the woods.

Give us devils spinning on the fields.

Give us the assurance of our own tracks

Connecting us to where we've been.

Give us stinging wind and pounding hearts,

Living harder, transitory, thirsting and aware.

–Along the Great Allegheny Passage near Connellsville.

Image courtesy of Elisa Mayes,
Photo by Jeff Helsel