Chase Twichell - Animal Caution

Whenever I touch the cairn
marking the summit
of one of my parents,
touch the top stone,
an animal caution comes over me,
sinew and muscle like the brook's,
a sudden shivering
green-brown flame.
Soon they will be constellations,
and I a small tower of stones.

Chase Twichell

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/animal-caution/