bindweed seeds get high
in a gray squirrel’s gut
Convolvus winding
into a green sky
the ghetto of goldfinches
and spiderling balloonists
boundless
squirrel like a primate ancestor
what gets traded away
for a gift of visions
which buried treasure maps
slip from memory
allowing scatter-
hoarded acorns to sprout
in your gray squirrel mind-
turned-world
standing beside
its toppled twin
cucumber magnolia
beneath the white oak
200-year old charcoal
crumbles from the bank
the bright red club’s
rotten handle
jack-in-the-pulpit
jack or jill
transitioning to female
from the pulpit
tree branches grow
no lower than deer can reach
woods’ edge
rock piles
from the 19th century
the oak’s massive crown
right-of-way
the power pole all scratched up
by bears
hayscented fern
losing ground to goldenrod
a circling monarch
a self-closing gate
among 200-year-old oaks
its rusty note
smothered in leaf duff
the violet’s self-fertilized
alter ego
ah to be
both dapper and invisible
striped wintergreen
ignored by
a pileated woodpecker
the dust from her drill
under the green oaks
all the colors of flame
tupelo
too cold to move
the red eft shivers
when I stroke its back
I lift my eyes
to the hillside
dead and dying mountain laurel
a midnight-blue wasp
its white-tipped antennae
palpating the ground
the descent beckons
in three directions
old charcoal haul roads
crossroads deep in moss
a ladder of fungi climbs
a nearby snag
namaste means
I bow to the divine in you
lightning-struck oak
it’s not true
that lightning never strikes twice
spears of heartwood
glossy orange
to mark the hatchet-cut scars
property line
beyond the line trees
the same old view
chestnut oak seedling
“leave no trace”
only my footprints now
where spring beauties bloomed
black locust grove
the leaf miners have laid bare
a rich vein of sky
Rocks where an oak
has sat for 200 years—
a lizard flashes by.
Goldfinches gad about
in the blossoming crowns of the oaks,
brassy as advertising.
The clouds draw in.
Wood thrushes begin
their evening songs at noon.
Long feathers of rain
on the breeze—a plumage
the exact color of the world.
An oak tree toppled
in a high wind 20 years ago
has rotted almost to nothing,
leaving just the twist of roots—
spokes of a rimless wheel,
crippled star.
As if whatever hardness
kept this clutch from holding tight
now won’t let it go.
It’s only in strong sun
that the winter woods resemble
a bar-coded label.
Today is gray.
I pause to stroke the bark
of a diseased chestnut oak,
ridges kinked and folded,
ordinarily straight lines
impossible to read.
I grew up with a woodstove
instead of a TV. I know all
the theme songs of oak.
If I could unlearn
the names of the birds,
how much freer their flight!
In a dream, I run
through my half-remembered high school
to catch a bus.