Overnight in Coeur d'Alene

The sky is broken; a jeweled night spills out.
The watchful crows departed like shadows
to pursue the dying-coal of daylight
far into the darkening forest-deeps.
Dry wood burns best and brightest,
with less smoke. Our lives are leaves,
poised and pierced by firelight,
shifting and shivering in the wind,
in the sharp unfocus of the season
disturbed by blustery weather.
We sleep in the open air; dreams come strong,
fragrant with cedar and damp earth:
dreams of owls and powdered moths,
of crickets and distant singing-frogs
all along the slumbering river.
The wind is dark in the tallest trees;
the morning will find us here.