Chesed She’b Hod*
Walking in sun dappled woods with Toby and Norah
Zaydeh tells about Isaac Newton who studied
the moving shadows on the walls
of his Cambridge rooms which told him the time
more surely than any clock.

We discuss dissolving limestone, sinkholes, baby trillium
sprouts, trout lilies and the possibility
of Hobbit homes, barely visible through
the trees.  Strange birds’ eyes stare upward
from the shriveled leaves that Toby pokes

with a stick.  We admire fallen logs turned back to soil—
new root home for other new-born trees,
tell how their father as a growing boy walked
through these woods alone to the edge
of the quarry’s limestone pit.  We pass deer droppings,
strange scat some larger beast has dropped

for us to puzzle over.  All this mystery as we stroll
with our grandchildren down the forest path,
on this sun and shadow morning.
                                    5/3/2015
     *Loving Kindness w/in the Splendor of Variety