Nocturne

by Richard Taylor

I

Go bedeviled into the blind woods, like night
be with no eyes, trip over the witches’ hobble
reaching up from hemlock lees, the cluttered stone
where waters dwell, infant springs
that gurgle guttural

beneath the tangled roots. Follow aromas
of mold and eons sleeping in the leaves
that feed the fragile limbs of trilliums,
lips purple and pursed and wise to any
nearby mouse or bird.

They hark to a tale the bark has heard
in the spring’s small noise and told it
to the bough unfolding its green shade
in greeting or retreat, and each will use
the other’s ears

to mine the air for news or music, sniff a native flower
for its bewitching mist, wild plum, narcissus
and valerian come out in white to drug the night,
when gravid fragrance in the blossom’s wilt
foretells a plum.

The air is on a stroll, all paws for gossip
with deer moss and arbutus, feeling the round
or rough, the procession of red–capped British soldiers
marching without enemy or officer
across the moss

from stump to stone, no world to win, no need
to chisel the stone blind eyes when the fingers and feet
of child and bird have forever felt the warmth
of stone or gossamer fog that wraps
a naked woods in gray.

Night arrives. Pheromones go flirting
with butterflies dancing on the polished air
and fawns go dizzy chasing fleabane balm,
the buds of turtleheads by the turn
of a garrulous brook.

II

It is morning, and dawn begins
too soon. At the edge of the woods
there are butter and eggs for breakfast still
though the light’s look warns small creatures
to be scarce.

Walk raw now into the fallow field
and doubt the pale spring sun, though its faint mercy
looks to the lily come yellow and frail
from Canada to the meadow’s edge,
flashing its lavender freckles
at May’s first bee.

No need to conjure the early air, for
a blossom fills on a supple breeze that sings
a bobolink up from the hay, that stirs
the liquor in milkweed pods for butterflies
and bids them love the night away
among its petals in pink.

Visit amaranth and aster, serendipitous tendrils
and stealthy leaf, pagan daisies swaying
hand–in–hand amidst immaculate grass
held precious for hay but common as legions
of corn and potatoes marching monotonous
over the harrowed flats.

Then after the day the hay is turned and loaded,
the grass gone and its green, summer will dress fresh
in goldenrod and tanzi loving the slant light,
inching lithe shadows toward the closing woods
as clarion day hushes to dusk, a spent sun
snugs in the dark.