My mother
walking ahead of me
around a bend in the river
and I, a child too young to articulate
the particular ache of afternoon
in late autumn. There is nothing to
explain how often I return to this
moment, except that it was the first
time I was I and not another, not
the leaves red and yellow and stirring,
not the stones, slack and strewn on
the path, not the sky, full of wood
smoke which snapped into place
as my heart leapt up to greet itself.