Poem without words
Curl of an ache: six haiku
reblogged from Woodrat photohaiku
trail
turning dappled salamander
tail
curl
of an ache an oak
burl
one watery
eye between them
conjoined oaks
the shine of white-
haired youth
tussock moth
winding
up here
wild grapevine
ravished
by the wind
mother oak
On Sand Knob Trail
prismatic glints from a spiderweb
catching the sun
as it moves through the forest
on slow stilts
ignoring the trail
an old colliers’ road
now a deep wrinkle
through the rocks
I rest against
an enormous hemlock
and study its dead companion
scarred by woodpeckers
like a mask with a few
too many eyeholes
I take off my shoes
press my bare feet to sand
from a 410 million-year-old shore
turned to stone
distant gunshots
punctuate the silence
there’s no view at the summit
of Greenlee Mountain in the summer
only the rock oaks’
interpretive dance
moving shadows
on a slab of quartzite
a hooded warbler teaching
its young how to sing
***
Rothrock State Forest
July 26, 2024
Ex Libris
i open a book in the woods
and two ravens take flight
wind shuffles the sunset leaves
the ravens gurgle in the distance
another day breaks down
into its elements
i am trying not to rejoice
at the deaths of my enemies
the spongy moth caterpillars
decorating oaks with their corpses
they too are strangers
and sojourners in the earth
unable to limit their appetites
and stay where they land
the way an old mountain laurel
sheds its spent blossoms
and stands in a patch of what looks
from a distance like snow
Picnic
in an oak forest whispery
with caterpillar droppings
an ovenbird steps out
on her pink feet
as i drink my pink tea
of sassafras and milk
the sun slides down
a silk thread
whose absent abseiler tracks
a shadow back to its tree
a caterpillar with whiskers
as bristly as a streetcleaner
entering a dark valley
in the bark of a chestnut oak
follows it up the trunk
propelled by its gut pulsing
in sync with the prolegs
from hump to hump
driven almost literally by hunger
a body within the body
that one day will crawl out
with wings and gonads
an overwhelming urge to mate
and no mouth
the female so full of eggs
she will not be able to fly
i finish my lunch
the male ovenbird is singing
a carpenter ant goes past
carrying a splinter
Mayday
the song comes from a long way off
slow as an old man making water
like a sort of sky
with one persistent cloud
the song brings its own weather
to a climate of fear
filling every redbreast
with territorial ambitions
until a brown thrasher
gets a hold of it and shakes
upside upside down down
get rid of it get rid of it
as the trees launch their fleets
unfurl their sails
cells vibrate in concert
each at its own pitch
a music not meant for any ears
this side of eden
where pollen still turns
our jack boots green
Brief
a sky with just one aperture
would fit in a briefcase
you’d hear it in there
clacking its beak
i miss the flesh of my flesh
lost during the pandemic
i have been drowning lady beetles
in the toilet in the sink
the oaks are dangling blossoms
before every passing breeze
green and yellow like snakes
in the old folk song
i argue all sides of a position
and call it prayer
i am sung to daily
by my followers the flies
Harrowing
an empty coal train
is rolling past a hobo camp
so many vacancies
like christ’s tomb
while the emergency room at the hospital
has no beds to spare
no windows of any kind
only an addict’s hallucinations
and a skinny old man
yelling help without the p
hell hell hell for hours
until the hospitalist snaps
out here it’s nearly easter
another winter’s worth of fossil fuels
have risen indeed
on wings of mercury
a gray fox ravaged by rabies
leaves her pelt beside the burrow
as the first hepaticas
raise their blue cups
Greens
the green of moss on an oak
three years dead
the green of greenbriar
on which a deer has grazed
the green of a bench in the woods
where vows were once exchanged
the green of garlic mustard
before it becomes too bitter
the green of ferns that have borne
the weight of snow
the green of winter wheat in the distance
when the sun comes out
the green of lichen on a rock
finding everything it needs
the green of leaves that won’t return
to a toppled witness tree
the old green of trailing arbutus
rushing into bloom for a few cold flies
Plummer’s Hollow, PA
March 17, 2024
After Life
in a thin soil of its own making
over slabs of ancient sea floor
the vacant shell of a pine
still stands below the ridge crest
gapped open like an iron maiden
with horns of wood
where branch collars
expanded ring by ring
now left behind when
the rest of it rotted out
the limbs they anchored gone
that whole green cathedral
in an afterlife where birds
can perch within
and snowflakes
fine as the hairs on a caterpillar
the squall hits just
as I clear the trees
painting us all white
in a matter of minutes
every twig and pine needle
furred with absence
and hours later when i hike
back up from the other side
following an abandoned
haul road through the rocks
it happens again
the valley lost in whiteout
and i descend through a blur
glasses safe in my pocket
telling myself it’s a spring snow
here and gone
that a glimpse is all we get
of winter any more
trees turned into
a forest of ghosts
as i reach the car
the view finally opens up
a snowy field green
with winter wheat
and a factory holding
5000 hogs they say
though nothing emanates
but a faint hum
the length of its roof pristine
in laboratory white
Canoe Mountain
PA State Game Lands 166
March 10, 2024