Birthright

more than sustenance at stake, the prize worth
nothing to anybody else, the gain an increment
of joy more pure than blue ice of glaciers
rare as flight without wings
a purse full of scarlet
in the snow

to run
with a body built
for running; unpursued
aimless in mid flight where speed
happens mindless as the whickering
of heavy headed wheat in unconscious
wind, a birthright unbidden

Lynne Haley lives in the Cabinet Mountains of Montana where she and her husband Sam are working to carve out a hermitage in the midst of National Forest lands.