Now the ridgeline is sharp-edged, purpled, flat,
featureless, matted upon the brighter sky.
That afternoon it seemed stippled and hatched
with bare trees against white. Last night it snowed.
Then, moonrise showed the ridge blackest beneath
a black sky. Just cresting over, sharp backlight
picked out four or five treetops in silhouette,
limbs detailed against a bright arc.
The moon rose free and blackened all, everything
black except white light and white flakes in the air.
Our walk will show it fuller, gullied, open
along the switchback trail, staired
by great fallen blocks.
Light's straight lines invent edges of the
thicknesses our hands might grasp
pretending an obverse world. Petals
our fingers will hardly acknowledge as
solid as stones to our sight. Which stones
weight my palm can heft I'll measure.
But those boulders' mass is all secret.
Sums my estimation makes cannot
move my body's ignorance of tons.
I'll never have them like I do
the taste of water.
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