Poems curl to a pointlike skunk cabbage in the mind
pungent purple and green verse,
smooth lines speckled with rhyme.
Poets dawdle
over jack-in-the-pulpit in deep shade
assist the variegated wood snipe
in its wordy den.
We poke at the blood root,
saucy ramps and sticky milkweed
and snoop (just a little)
in the fungi of ambitious men.
We note the lichen creeping over ideology
as the ferns uncurl
and the spores fly without apology.
We watch the turkey vultures lurk,
count crows at the roadkill tent
of social-jurisprudence, chaos
and manís manipulative bent.
Oh yes,
we watch the world like poets:
meadow-lulling, rhyming nags
content to meter out the observations
to which these nosy lines are lent.
