Milkweed & Alder

Ov spindle clippings strung by fate 

Dire hooves mark from a push engraved. 

Sprawling flight, white corvid comes 

From bastard heath with insightful watching. 

The heart, the heart, the hearth, the bear, 

The oak, the alder, the bark, the deer. 

The loam, the berries, the elder, the cluster, 

The bushel, the bale, the farmer, the warrior. 

Battling through summer's touch 

Perched upon the fallen 

Watching pistils stamped to dust, 

Buried neck-deep in the pollens. . . 

While consuming stamen, 

A flourish awakens, 

Third-eye pries on basement lines 

Pushing pen from fungal enhancement. 

Tyndall glances, late-nite ergot mottled, 

Painting hues the world construes 

A glass by which Bacchus bottled 

Ov gaian vines: its first fruit pressed 

Adding yeast to age — by sea and rest. 

Another sip, ivory feathers talk, 

A warning cry: that danger comes.