As/Is







5.16.2006


The Nature of Things

On a rotten wood step
outside my little girl-room

painted with one-winged
dragonflies and ladybugs

I watch,

over teal colored fir trees
and spider webbed powerlines,

a brown owl
sweeping for rabbit.

In this manner, I memorize
the burnished sky, the sallow lake,

whiskered tips of wheat
once high, arced eastward-

the weight of wind
sleeping on a field.

Now, miles away
and years I hear

whip-poor-wills
in the deep throated thicket,

chirping frogs, oil black crickets,
the clovered tread of deer

and consider the owl.