Let Muddy Water Sit and It Grows Clear

It’s clear when, in membranous
              predawn blue
I enter pines, mind on
              embryo in amnion,

my tracks preceded
              by those of the dog,
his by a doe’s, hers by six
              hours of snow, it’s clear then

the distance between
              my affections and ability
to touch their sinuosity 
              is itself a felt silence 

called sun. Sun rises
              without provocation
over a frozen stream that frustrates
              reflection, but will

by the time a pulse is palpable,
              have thawed and grown 
clear again, permitting me to see
              a tree surface, distort, flow.

Copyright © 2015 by Ted Mathys. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on June 16, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.