Something stills and settles here
at this boulder on Pigeon Hill,
though engines roil not far away
and traffic lights flare through oaks
like Federal fires. Exhaust smoke sweeps
woods and rocks where pine scent drifts;
above, wild geese bellow, elapse the light
reflecting from a waning moon that kindles
the Dead Angle, Cheatham Hill, and the horizon.

A wren trills the memory
of shell-shattered trees;
a cardinal burns in bramble,
ember against green.

Already darkness descends.
Little Kennesaw’s summit behind me,
I sit and wait for the shadow.