I am halfway home across the bridge over
the creek at night. Beneath me muddy water
is rushing after the snow the rain has washed
away, and land is falling to fog following
the warmth that flushed the cold. Bands of current
have caught the moonlight, and ducks upstream are less
of feather than shadow where in silence they keep
their place. I am halfway between there and here
and stop to watch, wondering why the creek
would look so lonely full, and its hunger finds
the failing shore. I am losing the scene
each second of the mist’s pervasive settling,
here waiting between the darkness that came before
this passage and everything that is darker after.