A long wire gate
in a steep spot
has heard replacement
swinging from pipe braces,
moving the fence,
for twenty-five years—
hears us laughing at the hole
it sometimes takes both to close—
about a list longer than our lifetimes.
On the slick hillside,
reminders realized, open
to pastoral light as I rejoice:
relieved from my word
to myself, to one another,
and to these staples, posts and wire.
drycrikjournal 