on old Tom coming back in from a winter’s ride

my thoughts

and others that I have read, combine

softly as smoke.

the light that is left

singularly outlines the snow

balanced on the limbs of the Aspen

from this I feel a softness

the vastness and solitude tread so gently

as this golden wrapped in blue

folds itself into purple

before becoming darkness

the slow rhythm of the saddle

Tom’s padded footsteps through the snow

become mesmerizing

Tom is taking us home

my thoughts are of myself, ourselves

turning into ourselves as leaves falling

in that slow spiral downward

that separation from space and earth

that moment of freedom that gravity provides

before hitting the ground

we have but to extend a hand

to stop the turning

or to change it’s direction

seeing ourselves’s through the filter of the eyes

of others

we become part of who they think they see

part of who we think we are

yet we are more