_39. Fireflies at Meadowbrook

When stepping into the canyon forests alone
on the blacker edge of twilight
my way is lighted by a thousand fires.
Here are voices that know
the shock clarity of a beacon
to the pilgrim or seeker.
I come for the gray, lonely canvas
of the moonlit sky
and the branch tangles
that would hide it from me,
but I am not given only that solitude.
Instead every light
blazes through the frenzy of gloaming
when I enter the wooden chapel.
How to hold on to the clench
of fear that prefaces discovery?
This is a country I no longer inhabit,
that I enter only in the assurance of memory.
Here is a host that will welcome me only
when I close my eyes to return to darkness.