the trees are a greengold mist on the ground;
the hills are as smooth and sure
as the skins of birches.
they curve in autumn shapes
against a windwhite sky.

this far north there are
seasons to match the interior year:
silkhair wheat and surfeits of snow.
the hills' edges rise flaxen:
burnished now in the setting sun.

occasional gargoyles peek confused
from the world's bones, and i'm unsure
which sky is real: the sky
of seasmooth plain beside me
or its blushing wheatsoft hair,
the heavens,
pale pastel with clouds and linaments.
one contrail light is the
fierce mustache of god
and i laugh:

though earth may scan so vast
and throughbred tangled,
it's this:
a curve, a shape
turning long between the
sky and sungold,
pastel and wheatfield,

smooth as the skins of birches.