The earth is already aslant with change.
I love the simplicity of chores.
of laying down
the grasses of summer,
the sound of horses eating,
frost on their manes,
breath visible in air,
the deep lung of their breath.
I rake frozen manure
and then I see it
on the mound I raked yesterday,
the snake skin, newly shed.
All night I wonder
how a snake left its earth den
from its companions woven together in a ball
and shed a skin so perfectly
in winter.
There is no answer
except perhaps a day’s warm sun,
but in truth there will be no answer
unless from the split red tongue of that one
whose eyes never close,
who was awake
and now is back home
with its body curled into a three-foot secret
ten thousand years old.