Some are no more than a slat nailed
across the forks of an ash tree
at the corner of a field where
the hunter can wait for a buck
to feed within range. While others
are reached by rough boards for rungs up
the trunk to the platform above
the used trail, a simple tree house
for playing stalker in November
cold. You find them by surprise
in woods and hedgerows, and look
up expecting to be watched,
but see the deck is always bare,
or holds a few limbs and leaves
like a nest when the builders have
flown. At the top of the crude steps it
looks down on the traffic of seasons
as the nails of the crosspieces
and braces are eaten by the tree’s
migrating sap, a place of vigil,
a perch tiny as the porches
ancient ascetics sat on for
years above the desert’s and their
own temptations, looking down
on the world as the visions
of love’s most vivid ghostly
exultations wandered near them.
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