August Winter Night

Tell me not the earth cannot breathe.
I heard it sigh when the warm front hit.
The crickets sang to the amber breeze --
(Too foolish to know their time was short).
                                   In the shuffle -- of untroubled hooves,
                                   The whuffle -- of velvet whiskers, I heard it.

The ex-

                        hal-

                                        ation of the land.

Saying, “Come. Come to me.
Breathe in my sighs. My smells. My life.
And be.”