"Fence Line Tree" by Jim Harrison

Image by George Raab

There's a single tree at the fence line

here in Montana, a little like a tree

in the Sandhills of Nebraska, which may be miles

away. When I cross the unfertile pasture strewn

with rocks and the holes of gophers, badgers, coyotes,

and the rattlesnake den (a thousand killed

in a decade because they don't mix well with dogs

and children) in an hour's walking and reach

the tree, I find it oppressive. Likely it's

as old as I am, withstanding its isolation,

all gnarled and twisted from its battle

with weather. I sit against it until we merge,

and when I return home in the cold, windy

twilight I feel I've been gone for years.

"Fence Line Tree" by Jim Harrison, from Saving Daylight. © Copper Canyon Press, 2006.

"Before Dark" by Wendell Berry

Photo: Dee Langevin

From the porch at dusk I watched

a kingfisher wild in flight

he could only have made for joy.

He came down the river, splashing

against the water's dimming face

like a skipped rock, passing

on down out of sight. And still

I could hear the splashes

farther and farther away

as it grew darker. He came back

the same way, dusky as his shadow,

sudden beyond the willows.

The splashes went on out of hearing.

It was dark then. Somewhere

the night had accommodated him

—at the place he was headed for

or where, led by his delight,

he came.

“Before Dark” by Wendell Berry from Collected Poems. © North Point Press, 1985.