Overlooking Yahoola Valley

i wake to a perfect patience of mountains.  ~e. e. cummings

Sound travels up, my husband says.
I hear the whinny of a horse I cannot see.
A wisp of fog lingers behind Chestnut Knob,
and the aluminum chair warms
to the underside of my arm.

They’ve taken a calf away.
The mother mourns,
as turkey vultures, leaving their roost,
begin slow circles, their shadows
kaleidoscoping all around me.

What is morning but another chance
to listen for echoes, to note
what keeps coming back to me:
that deep loss, that fear of letting go,
of letting this moment be
the simple thing it is?