Brother in the Back Meadow Looking

each free afternoon he wanders outside
and I know the ache inside him
he gulps water and chews a few bites
so as not to need return for sometime
persuaded of the idea he is not
but devoted to an intuition
fostered deep in him, in a room with old candles and late day rain on
the stones outside it,
he believes the suggestion of that hidden place
that something lives out there, where he wanders, and on a day
not long from this one
he'll meet it and take it into himself

I worry he is right
but dabbling in a pasture already known
and home to nothing he doesn't,
despite the word of the dwelling inside him,
so long as he walks keeping this side of the far fence
weaving the familiar birch and pine
he will remain bereaved of the vacancy
never looping up the trails after his countrymen gone before him
to fade away over the far hills, instead
circling back at the property line,
smell of home strong but stale,
having not been stirred or interrogated
he will compose his ballads worthy of a
sea's distance and a raftless exile
for some Beauty who wanders too,
just a long honest walk away
into the trees