The Visitor

Phillip Brown

I woke and rose, seeing
the light—hushed, but clear,
shining simply through my window—
and I knew.

I crossed the room
and unlatched the window—
pushing out into morning—
and I felt a restlessness in the air,
a shiver of cold fire, a new spirit,

and I drank it into my sleepy lungs;
I gathered it up in my arms,
and I knew.

He had come and gone.

Come, in the early dawn:
the wanderer, wild and quiet,
bundled in a faded cloak—
a pale young man
with storm-colored eyes,
tramping through field and forest.

Looking from this window,
I see the mist he spun
from cloud and from breath,
spread over the ground like a sheet,
unraveling now under delicate fingers
of sunlight.

I see his red fingerprints
on the trembling tips of the leaves—
left as he cradled them in his hands,
as he pulled them close to his face,
whispering poetry into
their papery ears.

I hear the rustling breath
of the wind, cold in my ears—
the wind he coaxed
down from the mountains,
out of its loneliness,
to shepherd the falling leaves.

And in the shadows, I see
he has left a young sapling
burning, like a lantern—
the flame of its body quaking
in the morning air—

a stroke of crimson lingering
on into the day,
like a hymn spoken before dawn.