Where the Map Ends

I walked the boundary of the back pasture today

The wire fence was sagging under the weight of vines

The sun stayed low enough to turn the grass gray

Everything I knew looked like something else for a moment

Just before the evening settled into the soil

I felt the air grow heavy and then light again

Like a door opening, Francisco

Like a door opening in a wall I hadn’t noticed

It is the edge where the map ends

A shifting shape in the corner of my eye

PXA is the bridge between the wood and the wind

Neither here nor gone, just turning (Just turning in the light)

I watched the tide pull the beach into the sea

The stones looked like animals breathing in the surf

My father always said the eyes play tricks in June

But I think the world is just showing its seams

Getting ready to mend what we broke yesterday

It’s a quiet transformation of the things we touch

A slow movement, Ancient Moon

A slow movement of the familiar into the unknown

It is the edge where the map ends

A shifting shape in the corner of my eye

PXA is the bridge between the wood and the wind

Neither here nor gone, just turning (Just turning)

We build houses to keep the weather outside

But the weather is already in the floorboards

Moving the dust in patterns I cannot explain

It is a heavy work, this changing of the guard

Looking at the oak and seeing the fire inside it

It is the edge where the map ends

A shifting shape in the corner of my eye

PXA is the bridge between the wood and the wind

Neither here nor gone, just turning (Just turning, in the center of it all)

The wood turns to water

The water turns to stone

Steady now (Steady now, steady now)