A Journey
A calmness settles, not a numbness. Trees
I pass, that used to drip with pain and drop
Their leaves in orange sorrow, only please
With steadiness of green. They hold a crop
Of new, or dark, or waving apples, leaves
Or needles. Fields no longer seethe with pain
Like shining pheasant breast as it receives
The royal blast of pellets. Dun and plain
A female pheasant waits beside the hedge
For insects, not to meet her doom. The fields
Beyond are only grain and not the edge
Of brooding death and threat requiring shields
In front of chest and guts. The redwood tree
Back near my home is not mortality.