When I stepped from the thick brush into the clearing,
the rustic wooden footbridge across the narrow ravine
almost escaped my notice, so leaf-strewn was it,
so at home among the pines. I paused half way
from one side to the other, thinking how the bridge
was like the moment between breaths, the one
that smooths this Now to the next, and how
there’s always sunlight up ahead, even when
you’ve been a long while in a dark and tangled woods.