And has a vision of a mountain lake,
feather oil mixing with rain
The water at the shoreline a quivering mother
berating the rock
Her song dripping with dark knowing
that braids its way to a beach
where a child plays with bucket and trowel,
arcing sun whistling across brow
And there’s the way out—
the tunnel beneath this dreaming,
Crow chewing on answers as if
facing a murder of mirrors—
the sky bluer than any blue
you or I have ever seen
Against such a background
everything gives way,
Crow says, quiet and grave
just boundaries we fear,
then flies
Peter Grandbois is the author of thirteen books, the most recent of which is the Snyder prize-winning, Last Night I Aged a Hundred Years (Ashland Poetry Press, 2021). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in over one hundred and fifty journals. His plays have been nominated for several New York Innovative Theatre Awards and have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. He is poetry editor at Boulevard Magazine and teaches at Denison University in Ohio. You can find him at www.petergrandbois.com.