Solstice
Winter dulls the world and
the yearly deaths begin.
I can see a distance through the woods now.
Still, it looks the same only sharper, fewer distractions
and the trees getting thinner in the distance.
When I was young I would curl into the city’s
nighttime sirens and backfires and write into a diary
my longing to live in the countryside.
It felt like the truth
but now I see that as any anxious
child I longed to be alone
without myself. It sounds funny
to write it aloud. The older I get
the fewer words I need, like a tree
preparing itself without realizing
it is. Without the leaves I see birds
flock and dissipate, a repetition
of design. A pattern can be made
by error, as when the first bird startles
so all the rest take off.