Poems by Prabu Vassan

Unmarked Trail

by Prabu Vassan

Prabu lives in the Hudson Valley of New York near the river named Muhheakantuck by the Lenape and later the Hudson by the Dutch.

A band of waxwings, dark against
The raw gray, arcs into
The darker heart of the pines…

This is where the trail peters out:
Rocks darkening, dry creek bed
Turning grain by grain to a stream

Of ash, every creature curled up
In its den of dirt, root and silence.
And the salt wave of loneliness

Heaves through over and over,
Each time wearing away
A little more, whole hills of pine

Abraded to a charcoal smudge.
There’s now the calm of forms
Worn down, the repose of things

Having outrun and outfoxed
Their names. There’s a small clearing,
As of dry grasses crushed flat

Where something bedded down
For the night, a quiet, as of hollows
Pawed out of the earth.