A leaf
Light as light,
the ghost of a tree aflame,
the fire etched in flat tin, waiting
for warmth to move into the silent woods.
Muddy track scabbed with dead leaves,
remnants, nest jetsam, and the silence
broken in high branches by birds fortifying; calling.
By the path there is only wood: copied, pasted,
ditches dead with choking, gates broken,
and a stilled stream, strangled by windfall.
Are you here? In the sudden glare of the sun,
between track and sky, in these insistent feet
moving forward from the ruin to the river.
Are you silently here? In mud, and forest,
and the supernova.
Phil Miller is a writer and poet based in Edinburgh. His poems have been published in print and online and his novels are The Blue Horse (2015), All the Galaxies (2017) and The Goldenacre (to come in 2022).