Amidst the Larches

My handwriting is all over these woods.
No, my handwriting is these woods, 

each tree a half-print, half-cursive scrawl, 
each loop a limb. My house is somewhere 
here, & I have scribbled myself inside it.

What is home but a book we write, then 
read again & again, each time dog-earing

different pages. In the morning I wake 
in time to pencil the sun high. How 
fragile it is, the world-I almost wrote

the word but caught myself. Either one 
could be erased. In these written woods,

branches smudge around me whenever 
I take a deep breath. Still, written fawns 
lie in the written sunlight that dapples

their backs. What is home but a passage 
I'm writing & underlining every time I read it.


Written Deer, by Maggie Smith