Distance

The sun just tops the trees'  
Naked branched      
Heaven-ward reach    
Fractal against the sky    
As if to remind    
     
As above    
So below    
     
Each alike though their own    
     
*    
     
The brown turned leaves    
Lie    
A scattered carpet beneath the trees    
Thick and soddened    
And edged with frost as is the lawn    
The grass a faded green    
With some parts tawny      
Faintly white    
Though closely look and some parts sparkle    
Where sunlight catches icy edge    
Coverings      
And edges    
And sun overarching    
From its rising to its setting    
Here,    
Where Umbar and sienna hues  
Shade this earthen world    
Though bark's more grey than brown    
Save perhaps the pines    
And cool    
White mist marks the breath    
With the ghost of living    
     
I warm as I walk    
Plowing the cool    
Some foreign vessel    
Leaving a wake of introspection and reflection    
Against the mists billowing gossamer white    
Along the creek and low lands    
I'm adrift at sea out of sight of land    
Where no birds sail against the sky    
In the chill of morning  
Alone    
Other vessels anchored safe within    
To the shelter of hearth and home    
     
But brisk set I    
Along the path    
And walk    
where silence echoes    
     
How long since leaves afire    
On Autumn winds were falling    
And leaves adrift like thoughts    
Mostly glimpsed and then forgot    
Save some few we watch    
The trace of their trembling drift      
Spiraling    
From tree to ground    
And to what end aflutter    
These more than a thousand leaves  
Elsewhere softly falling    
Or thoughts    
Which we would rope and tie    
To keep in mind    
For the thousands that are scattered    
     
What berls us as the wood    
With knots and marks and notches    
No matter how fine the grain    
Forked beneath the sky    
Like frail lightning    
Too brief burning    
Ours the passing of distant thunder    
     
A dog barks in the distance    
How near or far I cannot tell    
In a day of miles and years  
And wandering roads untravelled    
Or paths    
As I    
As if I blazed some new woodland trace    
On this beaten track    
Whose only whisper of those before    
Is the hard pressed ground I step    
So I but follow where those have gone    
Who have gone before me    
To trudge in turn      
And then return      
As one eternal round    
     
There is only one trail howsoever it meanders    
Though I would have my own    
And there's the depth    
The rub    
The crux of the question that I ponder    
What do I have    
That's mine    
My own    
Save that which I leave behind    
Life's as leaves    
And thoughts of wants    
On this trail that I climb    
And the nearer to the top I come    
Shall I touch the sky?