Bearpaw Meadow

Incense cedar, elderberry,
scattered chapels of white fir.
Cones stand up like paper squirrels

on the branches, waxing
resinous in sun light of the year
yet lingering with warmth in plenty,

here, now, an afternoon
in folded grass and browning nests
of bracken under broken

granite, lucid sky. Stillness
after ache and heave
of summer, no one here beside,

and no one thinking of the snow.