All That Glitters Is Gold

Wine flask, beer cans,
a clearing interrupts the woods
with a lining of leaves
and casual animal skins.

I anoint this the first still space
in a thousand years
large enough to stretch
a body out and pray over it.

If the sun finds
this place, it will close it down.
The trees will insist
on shade I no longer require.

The sun keeps trying.
So I will, too. I pour out
what's in my hand, wine, beer,
fingerprints, blood

if that's all that's left.
To dab the rocks with living color
in my little studio.
To bring the trees down to earth.

Copyright © 2007 James Doyle All rights reserved
from New Zoo Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission