Pin sight.
Like the forest that is answerable to its wolves when a foreign predator invades;
or the great-empty sky when every native rodent of the droughted-land dies—
or our man on firewatch when half the forest burns in hours he’d shut his eyes.
I missed to see a certain-falseness of the mist in the hills,
and sudden cold-showers in July;
as one misses to see themselves in a moment of undisturbed silence,
in a seemingly unending night—
unless brought to consciousness by an awakening, akin to a cut in the leg;
wrought by one's own futility and fright.
Perhaps that's why you turn away the face:
to keep the bruise writhing, and alive.
Did you go through all this trouble to bring an empty vessel to life,
and make a-rebel of a scarecrow that burns until all fear is expelled,
as it brings forth a turn in the tide?