The first summer oriole
Both color and choral.

The summer equinox
Redoubles the lake light.

A sun dog in the north
Melts the eye of ice.

Initial inches of rain
Produce more grain.

Foremost the waterways
Must have their say.

Primary to the present
The future having no forests.

Earlier to being right
Honesty has plain sight.

Latest to wake
A young garter snake.

A maiden dragonfly
Cuts close to eventide.

Pioneers to these places
New growth races.

The first river otters
Return to our waters.

In fifteen minutes of walking
I’ve discovered purple loosestrife,
Virginia creepers, hemp agrimony,
Blue vervain, horseweed, goldenrod,
Giant ragweed, Queen Anne’s lace,
Water hyssop, and clematis…
If I keep walking down this path
I’ll discover all the names of the earth.
As at the beginning of life
As at the end of death,
I’ll take root in the sun,
I’ll turn green and grow wild.

A plum plops
Into a rain barrel.
Night spills over its rim.

Plum branch
Reflected in a rain barrel
Like a woman with plums.

Before sinking
Even a plum ripples
The moonlight.

Bird singing
Above a rain barrel
Amplifies fair weather.

Plum splash
Rings the bell
Of sleeping rains.

Three faces
In a rain barrel
Like Emperor and sons.

One after another
The water clocks
Of summer rot.

Plumb imperfect
The rain barrel
Rounds out nature.

Moss to the bilge
Sinks a barrel
Deep into summer.

Washing its face
The rain gazes
Into its own eyes.

From the spout
The green wine
Of the sun runs clear.

The youngest sassafras branches are green, like rose stems.

A broad-winged hawk lands on the hydro tower like one of the gods of voltage.

A cooper’s hawk and kestrel round out the day’s raptures.

Also came across a stand of young honey locust trees, like dancing partners dipping and swaying in the wind.

Along a path of reeds the whispers are like the voices of many lives in parallel universes.

Yesterday I found a dying mantis on the path, with a day moon in one eye.

Fall is falling today like an adagio only I can hear.

As though a Van Gogh of the wind had painted a brush dipped in sunflowers across the forest.

A female cardinal separates her shadow from her shade and turns up in neither.

When a cardinal and a blue jay cross the same path at the same instant, the discernment of truth cuts through the silence of beauty.