ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE

Fox with plumey apricot tail.

Fox sparrow with stripey wings.

Hare, white from eating snow.

Gleaners scamper over plowed mire

planted last summer with heavy pumpkins,

Black-seeded sunflowers and the last

Sheath of old Woman Maize left

in the dark loam of earth's breast.

Forage,

Country mice, star-nosed moles,

Voles, shrews, no need for gentrification;

Vultures, crows flying, one eye down.

Tiny violet faces piqued with snow,

Leaves, iced-green.  Sugar trees,

Sap slowed by freezing moon.

Turtles, geese, carp feed

On bitter cress and blue sedge

Born in shallow beds of mud.

They all live in the style to which

They are suited.

No decisions - nature chooses for them.

Burdock seeds hitchike in animal coats

Through stands of white pine, meadow, bog.

Peace reigns.

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from Estuary, Poetry of Barbary Chaapel