Harker's Run, April 2009

Cicadas failing, green hills unfurled
scroll-long into a mute map.

First night in dark trees, thunderheads,
wafts of red clay, cigarettes.
On the floor of those woods: an empty eastern box turtle shell,
withered condoms, horn coral fossils and morels past consumption.
The detritus of a green and buzzing creation.
Such abundance made meal,
rast-ways of urge rendered hollow.

The bilge water down there, 4 Mile Creek,
slank past slugged and rainbow-sheened with oil film.
Giant carp in their chain mail, approaching heaven,
sucking horseflies from the surface.

And not far off, garden rows of Civil War dead and
city fathers--then the unmarked stones far from view--
simple women, drunks, blacks. Caskets borne up
by locust roots and time.

The trail to the pond winding
through sacred groves of snakegrass and damselflies,
sun luxuriating, green breathing in time
and the sound waiting for me.

I wish I didn't know you. I can't keep caring for you
and I can't pretend not to--such a place as this:
Your undiscovered common places,
your overturned perfection.