caught in the balance

I am caught
by the options

paused
at the fork in the road

one leads back to where I began; flat and wide
the other climbs steeply
with the promise of a view

what lies beyond that mountaintop?

a promised land?
or will I climb arduously
only to look back and realize
the beauty of where I was?

I close my eyes
and take that leap
for the first step is the hardest.

I got the text that she passed away 

on halloween

my cell phone came to life

as I came down off the mountain

I snapped the phone shut and

my headlights caught her

a white birch,

her bare pale skin striking against the dark

of the fields beyond

with branches upstretched

a dancer, with a leg extended behind her

arms reaching for grace

every day I see her

touch this memory of a woman I've never met

until today

she is shrouded by the green growth at her tips

and though I see her when I drive by

she stands out less in the long summer days 

her green leaves blending with the the fields beyond

her graceful dancer's body hidden

but I know, next fall,

when Halloween comes and the distance between worlds

is closest,

she will have shed her leaves and come alive again