Time

I watch time pass in the dip and bounce
of branches, the spiral dance of my stripling
eucalyptus… Outside, I enter the pressure
and pull of it, my ten thousand prints mark
sand while the river ruffles to fish-scaled
silver, and wave-swirls scallop the shore
with fine piping. So much work
to be done — patterning, obliterating.
Can I breathe time as I breathe the wind,
draw its strength into my lungs, resist
its strength with my body? Today, this is not
gale-force time, we are evenly matched;
and I have known a sunlit freedom from time
when, not touching me, it listened, waited.