Forestry

morning of soft sun and old gold

with the distant yelping of trucks going backwards

the sound of limestone being ground down

and a silent jay going from oak to oak

throat pouch filled with acorns it flies off east

i follow animal paths into the afternoon

a gray squirrel buries an acorn under a laurel bush

sees me watching and digs it up again

silk threads scintillate wherever i look toward the sun

each lowbush blueberry bound to the next

as if the whole forest lay under a spell

a chipmunk rushes past i change hats

low sun in the tops of the Norway spruces

where golden-crowned kinglets whistle while they glean

a raven’s hoarse ark ark ark

and me pondering questions of macroeconomics

puffball ragged as a faceless old doll’s head

what fertile words of smoke would you have me spread

when the leaves fall there’s always some disillusionment

how much lower all the ridgelines

how much farther the shell of a moon

but i’ve been tallying the mountain’s sugar maples

pale as columns of breath moss-lipped

ringed by drifts of glowing jetsam