MOSS
A dream of coming back
to see what is left and done —
long barred shadows
along the forest floor
as though there were a buried cage.
I walk through the woods.
And the moss keeps changing.
Sleeves of it on rotting logs,
large swaths spread on granite slabs
to soften the cold stone.
Then a miniature forest.
Finally, a sign.
I become so tiny I can walk right through it
to a fieldstone cottage
made of all the rocks I gathered as a child
in the woods near our house
to build the forts that I believed
would keep us safe.