In my dreams we enter
the woods, you
slip between tall
trees (think, pillars
of stone in the old
cathedrals)
leaves on the ground so thick
we are ankle–deep
in gold.
These things whisper:
hair–thin branches
in the trees' high crowns,
the leaves as we pass,
a black bird's wings —
blood surging
in my ears as we climb
to that place where the sky
opens up–no longer
a mesh of branches
enclosing darkness
but limitless
white
uninscribed snow
a plain of moonlight
a clearing, and no one there
About the Author: Wendy McVicker lives and writes in the beautiful green hills of Athens, Ohio. In her poetry, she seeks "to honor memory and the slow, deep process of knowing." Her poems have appeared in Appalachian Women's Journal, Confluence, Riverwind, and Whiskey Island, among others. She is a teaching poet with the Ohio Arts Council's Arts in Education program, and has been inciting poetry in schools, libraries, galleries, and community centers since 1987.
Copyright © 2008 by Wendy McVicker. This poem may not be reproduced in any form without the author's express written permission.