Apophenia

“Between every in-
Breath and every out-
Breath, there is the underworld.”

And between the underworld
And the social world
Sprawl the borderlands,

And on the wayside
Of the border road
That parallels those twinned worlds,

A small figure waits
For a message in the snow,
Watching for patterns,

Alert as the hawk,
The buck, the chipmunk,
The indeterminate bird

Whose existence is betrayed
Only by a fall
Of snow and an eye.

All of this adds up
To a signal the figure
Alone interprets,

A sign from the worlds
That something significant,
Something magical,

Changing everything,
Even the rules of winter,
The nature of snow

In the borderlands
Between the living
And the underworld,

Is bound to happen
Between this coming evening
And tomorrow’s dawn.

The figure breathes in,
Revisits the underworld,
Then breathes out again,

Reappearing on the road
Parallel to worlds,
Phantom of the borderlands.