The pines are holding in their breath;
the mist still kneels in silver rows.
He keeps the morning folded close,
one dark, unhurried, listening rose.
The cere is gold, a small exact sun
set over law the first wind wrote.
Each feather laid like shield on shield,
a living psalm the forest wrote.
No sermon splits this tender hour;
no hurried wing, no needless cry.
The brook nearby rehearses still
the syllables God taught the sky.
He wears the woods upon his breast,
umber and cream, the bark, the thorn,
and waits as roots wait under stone
for mercy’s quiet to be born.
The hunter’s patience is a grace,
a lifted psalm the branches know.
What moves in him is more than flight:
the pulse that makes the spruces grow.
So day begins without a shout,
with hook and eye and mottled vest.
The clearing writes its mercy out.
He signs it, silent, on his breast.