Deerfield (2)

Morning air is a series of thick and    sweet smells that swell with the rush
of current. The current ribbons and stretches over
raised patches of        brown stones.  Its skin glitters in sunlight.  A small bluegill, elm
leaves, and a few blades of grass slide past—a kindred impression, but
who can say the order of things      as they stand in the mind of God, and without
the colors of affections.

Red dragonflies            and blue winged maiden flies
double on the surface; they glide and hover    in the tall grass.  They rise up a foot and a
half and drop back down.  They switch places.  Two maiden flies mate
in a warm current, one hovering slightly piggy-back              on the back of
the other. Nothing in nature is exhausted   in its first use.

Overhead, a long, dark, globular bodied caterpillar    with light markings
around its face and jaws         slices sections out of an elm leaf.  The soul traces and
retraces itself, its form, in leaves missing sections.
The caterpillar's jaws are never to be          far out of the mind.  Thread them back into
the woods where a birdsong carries    in the direction of
the rusted chicken-wire fence. Splotches of light     fall down on ferns and weed
through the tree line. Patterns of leaves light, shift in wind,
eclipse each other at intervals.