This is no solitary walk: they startle into view,

enter by a jay screech, step out

from the hunch of a boulder’s shadow.

Of course the dead return these last fine days

when we stride most at ease in the borrowed world.

Today the autumn sky opens with an acorn’s crack,

and I set out for the ridge, leaning

into the slope, the steady ache of muscle.

Here my father’s stern patience in a hawk’s pivot,

my friend’s voice threaded among the wind-shaped branches.

They have come to warm themselves in the late-day sun

and remind us of our promises. Ready to be taken again,

the dead nestle in the nub of a rib,

breathe with our breath, curl in our sleep

against winter’s lengthening nights.