Small Stones, and: Conversion, and: Deer Crossing

Three Poems by Dan Leidig Small Stones Conversion They are so smooth and palpable I want to claim them for mortal use, incise them as markers, raise up in this field small stones for the fallen, preserve the lost lineage of earthworm and beetle, chronicle the passage of fieldmouse and mole, the flyways of sparrows, the decedence of daisies, the chicory's lost blue, and engrave an old legend of the sweet droning tree that called us this way. Now in a soft hollow of this fading field beneath blackberry and elder I find fallen a nest into which I surrender these stones to erode in slow silence their own smooth epitaphs to the unspoken gifts of inexorable weathers. The clouds have upended and collapsed on the land. Froth spills from cedars, fenceposts and eaves, and snowbird ellipses punctuate trees. A surreptitious sculptor is filling up spaces with fabulous forms and propping up houses in curious places. And creaturely children become angels aglow as their fortunate fall is played out in snow. 54 Deer Crossing The young deer with oblivious grace file across a saffron field I had thought to be replete, an ample space, before this apparition, this rural visitation. Despite their steady pace my pounding heart obstructs my count to seven. Already in my head I've turned to go with haste to tell the laity of this occasion here at dusk of heaven. Yet even in the spell they cast I know such consuming beauty cannot last, dissolving with each frozen frame into the still, gray overlay of winter's hedged evasion. No one has told them innocence is sacred here. Their deep, empty eyes register no surprise, their abundant ears do not lift to hear my tremulous surmise of gratitude for the evanescent state of passing gifts of grace. Otherwise it were too large for any, except perhaps the innocent, to behold or long embrace. 55 ...