Under the Pines

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The air is the color of waiting.

I sit under the pines
as evening gathers itself 
into stillness.

I am waiting 
for the last of the red light 
to fall quietly across the 
ground.

The needles beneath me 
cross and recross 
in a pattern too intricate 
to belong to accident or 
to design.

I stare downward 
until their lines begin to move 
as though what I am seeing 
has been breathing all along.

I think of when I first saw this sky,
how its silence touched my eyes,
and for a moment 
I think recognition itself is the world, 
that what returns is never the same
 but always brings its shadow 
with it.

I cannot tell what time it is.
Light seems to rest 
on its own reflection.
Everything holds.
Even the wind seems to stand aside.

And I sit here 
under the pines 
waiting 
for the shape of the sky
to become 
the shape of my looking.

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