On Beacon Hill
by Claire Booker

A kestrel unpleats in a violet sky,
its mate on the eggs somewhere brooding.

You walk in silence, and like the farmer
I count my stock, eyes shaded

not for the man you were, but for the us
we have become,

feet in rhythm, gradient rolling
against us, mud

muffling the ancient spine
that binds these hills.

Some call it a trudge, the unsure footwork,
chalk rubble tricky as lime,

but I love the climb: backwards always behind us,
forwards, always ahead.



 

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