On the last night of the long concealment, 
as he walked beneath the bright moon 
four sleeps down from the mountain
toward the prickle of lantern-light in the valley,
did he still stop to dust away his footprints, 

to sprinkle dried leaves over his steps, 
did he crawl on his belly through the runway 
of rabbits and weasels rather than walk the wide berth 
of bears, did he allow one small twig to surrender and break 
in the pitchy blackness, listening to its split dry sound?  

The creek he left behind in the darkness 
vowed to keep turning and tumbling in his absence.  
The boulders vowed to rest beneath the stars.  
The stars vowed to remain seated in their dark nests.  	
The trees screened any shadow that might lean

into their trunks. The wisps of smoke from each tiny fire
he had made against the rocks remained in the wind.
Dragonflies rose in the blue afternoon 
when he arrived at the jailhouse, 
bent and worn, asking for nothing, 

or asking, maybe, for something—
the pitch of one voice calling to another, 
that clattering of sound, a whole echo 
rising out from a throat, up into 
the uncertain particles of light.