This morning after yesterday's frost, it's warmer

and the low sky holds slate clouds, so little light

so little beauty, I was bored 

then I remembered and turned to walk the path toward a small meadow

where one young tree grows tall in the center, I like to walk toward

the way it stands higher than everything and brings me hope on a dull morning;

not from the sky behind it, from what's below it

the golden meadow grass - a precisely hopeful vision

and now, I'm on a path I haven't walked in months

here's the old field, cut, with the wild left in the center

some old pasture it must have been, the 

barbed wire rust framing the goldenrod

Heading home by the tracks, I have gathered

the tree standing in golden grass and goldenrod -

what I don't have is my favorite yet but

I keep walking and accepting, this morning

with this drab light there may be nothing

more, and yet, here, the mullein - so commonly

so predictably elegant - nothing about this common

flower has changed, but the red leaf fell to make it entirely new, so

I walk in doubt and practice

simply, walk in view of water, in shelter of trees, in presence of plants

sensing the skin touch of elements

what wind or dry or cold, what light

or lack     every step under sky, over ground

is improvisation