Gate and Shadow

Here is a copper padlock on the chipped paint gate,
from it descends the clumpy grasshill way
to a spring wrapped by cave-shapes and shadow,
to boiling water that is bitter cold,
to mossy stone, a slow wet carpeted place,
a ceaseless running out.

Here, the rock and water folds ripple out;
in this wave forms another gate,
a template that traces to a place
where light cracks the same way
dry leaves crunch underfoot after a biting cold,
or rows of pines slice a cloud's passing shadow.

And just as leaves and shadow
tease the air, wafting in circles of up and down and in and out,
a cold
slow waterfall floodgate
shutters and blinks and shifts and sways in the way
of this place.

This place,
that shadow,
will fall and rest and float and fall, spirits without a way.
Until. It pulls me out
and back up to the chipped paint gate
where my key snaps the copper cold.

When my key snaps the copper cold
I will place
dried crushed pine needles at the gate
and pile leaves into a shadow.
Then out,
I will walk out one way.

To depart, now, is the way
steam blankets glass when it's wet and cold;
I float out
and drop into place
past the shadow
that blows from the gate.

Leaving this place,
into yet another shadow,
yet another gate.