Another Antipastoral

I want to put down what the mountain has awakened.

My mouthful of grass.

My curious tale. I want to stand still but find myself moved patch by patch.

There's a bleat in my throat. Words fail me here. Can you understand? I sink

to

my knees tired or not. I now know the ragweed from the goldenrod, and the

blinding

beauty of green. Don't you see? I am shedding my skins. I am a paper hive, a

wolf spider,

the creeping ivy, the ache of a birch, a heifer, a doe. I have fallen from my

dream

of progress: the clear-cut glass, the potted and balconied tree, the lemon-

waxed

wood over a marbled pillar, into my own nocturne. The lullabies I had

forgotten.

How could I know what slept inside? What would rend my fantasies to cud

and up

from this belly's wet straw-strewn field-

these soundings.