Marsh wren weaves a small ball-shaped nest
from dry grass     silver carp roots out aquatic
plants & stirs sediment     disturbing the breeding grounds
in the rivers surrounding     spring comes
under snowcover     gilded leaves
rhizomatic tendrils     form     frond
finch     fur     common reed     wormwood
trees transpiring water make blue from molten rock
her body outside the shower in morning
steam stippled on glass


            Little La Cloche Island
            harbors mouse
                                    & vole


            ~


I watch an Iceland gull glide between smokestacks
near Celeron Island     star-shapes in ice-melt
red-tagged red-wings     earlier this year
ever darker territory     two downy woodpeckers
bounce branch to branch     pattern of
ice ages from slight changes
in Earth’s orbit     sawtooth fluctuation
becomes a continuum    becomes permanent putting off
flicker careens across boardwalk
wing-print on ice


            olive finch undulates
            alder
                                    for aphid


            ~


Sun’s luminosity increasing slowly over time
thinking the natural & social worlds together
small flock of turkeys     pipe stem adorned
with the head of an ivory-billed woodpecker
war filling every depression     in our knowledge of
the material world survive fragments     light    
lake-sheen     late-season goldfinches
their cupped nests holding rainwater     after summer
white-footed mouse     red squirrel    
trouble structures with young & seed


            milkweed bark
            & thistle-down
                                    make home     


            ~


Ice crunch under boot     geese honking above
she had questions about home & what might be revealed
a sense of things about to crack open
invention & conceit & whose journey
turkey vultures arriving for summer
before redpolls fly north to arctic nesting grounds
crossing of seasons     a beaver & a feather
for the forest     a detour between two presences   
daughter knows time & tides     dog returns
as I call her name into the dry grass


            chickadee probes cattail
            for shy-cosmet
                                    larva


            ~


The biological origins for moral reasoning
floating islands of fur-bearing boats
after extermination in Europe     hair-shafts
locked together with barbs     pounded into felt
for rich & poor alike     wardrobe record
process of dying     only the deepest
forests     & then an unmaking
sluice     trade    iron-kettle     river
Fish & Furres     words like chromosomes
interlocked in cause & effect


            beaver-skiff
            on oxbow
                                    & moon-glow


            ~


At the last a natural interruption of the natural sequence
in dreams we feel unexpected affinities
tap the ice & watch a line race through the thin mantle
dog’s paws pounding a packed trail
robin’s return signals the junco’s departure
succession of frost on moss on stone
frozen pools thawing for spring frogs
an original system     continuous foil of transformations
downies seeking mates create perfect circles
in dead trunks     a matching of shapes


            mallards float
            down River Rouge’s
                                      black ink


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