Kristel Rietesel-Low

—After Ted Kooser

After days of smoke
My daughter and I

Slip out into the fog
Disappearing. It’s in

The redwoods now,
Her small hand

Always knitting to mine,
And I think about

How we can’t see over the hills.
And what we can see—

Mount Tamalpais’ forests
But not its bleached ocean side,

Pines but not Muir Woods
And those last bits

Of redwood groves,
Birdsong chipping away 

Gray dawn, bedded deer,
Giant yellow slugs in sorrel.

We can see the first glints
On blue and teal bands of bay

At the small point under
The Golden Gate becoming

The whole Pacific, but not its
Pouring out in some rush

Of river or falls 10,000 years
Away, from this vantage,

Possibly big as Niagara Falls,
Possibly seen by our ancestors

Things that sang and passed.
It’s equinox. Little

Oak leaves litter the ground
In brown and gold,

Lift in the wind in little
Breaths. The gray presses

Down, demands
We listen. What

Is it? It says: The orb spiders
Are making wheels

Of gossamer that alight
In mid-morning prisms,

Vibrating. It says
Disappear into

Rose hip, dried black sage
Whose flowers have faded,

Underground: Hide.
We run downhill

With cold hands
To where it’s warm,

To watch from windows
Wasps skirting roses

Paper dried to brown,
And spiderwebs soon

Marred with prey
Or ash, one by one gone

Overnight from each
Striped spider centered

In each web right here
Saying, It’s time.