le trail
left as a universe to announce
the brittle thrust and restive eves
of daytime shadow.
30, 31

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SWEET WATER

The leaves lie hidden as spades about their home.
Brief movement of a kitten, then silence
till the car's engine drones.
Close by, a pioneer cemetery sits near a secondary wood.

Queer is the effect of sun on a tinted roof;
bluebells with poppies,
cowslip and tiny brook
back of
fields redden and
given to wheat.

A house is a machine
processing the water of living
a replenished cistern,
birds paying a call, a minor animal
brushing past
an ivy-railed fence.
32

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PRIMAVERA

A poem is perishable and,
like it,
so much of life is spent
in intervals -
the jarring second
regaining consciousness,
a post-mortem flick
of the lank equestrian eyelid
that signals morning's first crepuscular move.

... a little salad consciousness
about the tumescent room
with the sentient purr of a cat;
her musky oils
a green verdure
lapping primordial scent
to engross a little readiness
as the day progresses
to its Oedipal stage
and arrested development.
33

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THE ENCOUNTER

Today surprised me
like a red fox blurting
out of an October thicket -
empty, dry, the burst of its
energy camouflaged much as
that fox, solemn and cold,
biding his time
till he thought I
passed.
34

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MAGPIE TONGUES

Trillium breath, an ounce
of feathered growth unravels
in the cloves of the silent forest.
The rain is heavy with the stamp
of perfumed trees realizing
slight restraint on bursting seed.

Cloaked in fragrance, tufts
of mossy step kiss the opening earth,
a basement horizon presumes
the darling test of flower
across dale & rustling nook,
then undresses moist greenery
with sumptuous eye.

The last is hardest -
cat crimson, a fire weed sunset lotion,
the rain erased away;
nobody special harangues the leaves
but birds steal in quietly with
tenderness clothed of verdure
to pinch a leafy oasis about
their forest haunt.
35

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