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SMALL TRUTHS
Sometimes in the forest
there are voices I can hear no where else:
the gossip of dithering violets,
fanfare of trumpet flowers,
thunder of sap welling-up
through the shafts of trees
as the ice floes crack,
and the beckoning whisper of woodsmoke.
Underfoot the mosses submit
without a whimper
and the brown mushrooms split open
noiselessly. .
The indigo song of the moon
winding through the clutches of icicles
makes me think I can bleed blue light
from every pore, that I could own
a voice here. I want to believe it,
but she is a siren.
The moon changes her face over
and over again, now full,
now narrow,
now blue, now yellow.
What am I to believe?
In each colorful moment she embraces
her own lie. I cannot change her.
Lying with my ear to the ground,
I hope only for honor, like the solid clamor
of foxgloves, and the steady truth
of hyacinths, coming up white
year after year.
GREEN
The tracings of early dawn
stretch toward meadows,
illumining
heather
not-yet in bloom.
In minutes like these
I am at home in the ryegrass
certain of hedgerose,
forever
embracing limitless green.
Songs gather in my throat
and the wind rushes up my skirt
so suddenly
I could nearly fly.
West,
in a fringe of hemlock
a sleeping wolf
dreams of pursuit
and the dithering pheasant
in the bent grass.
The bird
clusters its chicks
among cluck and flutter,
settling into the dream,
on its wing
the tremulous song of escape
and the green feather of flight.