Once more the world, the landscape,
the place, the thing – everything that we are not
greens up, like a laugh in the heart of a 
     creature in love 
Something is loving the world
Once again people do not entirely matter 
The slaughter of the innocents enacted in this or that 
     corner of the world 
is not, to all appearances, the only story
Once more, before our eyes the face of The Other changes,
     the object of perception 
What do the philosophers make of this?
Do they say – like us? – the eyes of my eyes
may now be freshly engaged, transfixed,
that the miracle has shaken the grip 
     of our disbelieving heart?

Our eyes do not deceive us,
but relieve us of the chains of reason
We are not the dried stalk 
of some drying creature,
the dead-end climax of a rat chewing its leg 
    from a trap,
but the ecstatic children released from the prison house
    of material obligations, frowning routine,
     persnickety persistence
and all such denatured matters, 

schooled-out, recessed to enter once more the playground
     of awakened senses
and thumb our nose at the jailhouse of Time 
                        

Japanese Hornbeam, something Spruce or Fir,
then regal Hemlock lifting blessings to the sky:
A frozen sway of pleasure, gathering applause,
royal command and gesture of acknowledgment 
      to all these fellow green and overflowing giants
Poets of wood, soil, penetration of the depths, 
       rooting in the love of neighbors, 
time-grown articulation of the limbs

Living narratives 
Age-old fruits of earth
Roomy houses, their airborne hospitality
the village of communal life 
Minters of green and opulent wealth
flowing from the source of all true health
Money in the bank of all that speeds on earth
Persevering home for those who breathe, drink water,
     feed upon the soil or air
They themselves the heart-wood fruits of 
     endless, light-consuming mysteries 

Sons and daughters of the sky
Stilt-walkers looming on a spinning orb
Roots in silent long embrace of subtle, subterranean bonds
     with all that live below 

Eaters of sky, neighbors of clouds
Guardians of fleshly creatures that dwell below
Silent gods of the City on the Hill: Protectors 
     of a tribal love

Which I spy,
lurking somewhere in the still patchy grass.

Not yet have you shown your heavy hand, your face,
the glitter of your eye,
but still we espy you 
lingering about the new minty green of the trees:
The dealer on the corner, offering new clothes,
     fast cars, fleshly revelations

And all those leafy hidden children among the creeping and crawling
     red-warning vines,
sons of the burning-stroke, noonday demons
that twine together
into a silken rooftop of conquering green,
trees that close their permissive limbs 
over high-noon temptations,
that splendor in the grass. 

Still, I see through you,
through lime-green leaves,
pastel blossoms of fruity and ornamental pretense,
forerunner of mighty oaks that close above the dewy
     dawns and floral carpets
of liberated great estates,
and forest kingdoms with parking lots and useful brochures,

to your towering daystar 
that tosses dainty spring into the shade
and drowns the trills of April
when nesting songs are on the wing, 
dries the rills, the vernal basins, home  
to all those flash-in-the-pan shiners
and winged darlings of May,
silvery spawn that fly and flitter 
in the heydays quickly counting down.

Summer hefts the heavy wings
of humid skies, looses thunderous pronouncements, 
makes judgments from which no appeal can be permitted,

dries the taste of youthful inspiration
in the slough of heavy-laden hours spent 
recalling the slipstream of spring’s quick moment
while predicting with a yearning heart
those heavy-laden days 
of fruitful fall.