The Equation of Time

Take a smart device with you
Down the trail to Wilson Creek
Falls in high summer and pause

At some movement where water
Runs across the trail and sun
Spikes the gloomy second-growth

Conifers while a raven
Sounds a chortling cuckoo clock.
A squirrel responds, gibbering.

There are hikers on the trail,
Some with walking sticks or dogs,
Pick-ups parked at the trailhead,

Deer scat near the running streams,
Dirt bikes growling far away,
Piled thunderheads overhead.

Forget the meaning of the phrase,
The insect trying to draw your blood,
The extreme inconvenience of being,

And take a panoramic photograph
Of the path beaten through green from light
Through black woods, to light at the end.