By This End I Know

I did not see
your day begin
but by this end
I know
that all is well......

Through boughs of evergreen
I look toward
setting sun,
across an open field
cut for hay,
through river bank
groves of poplar, aspen,
and willow,
to purple mountains
rimmed with gold

river chatters
around rocks
in falling evening cold,
overhead,
a pair of quarrelling
bald eagles
wheel,
then, spent like falling arrows,
dive for home

Now a quiet watchman reigns
and calls the hours
with tiny birdlike voices,
stars on a firmament
of silence

until dark
when hunting moon
calls out her pack
and howling lopes
across star-shivering
sky.