Wednesday, January 12, 2011

On Any Riparian Water Way

on any riparian waterway

what a flat line that is,
browsed beneath the aspen -
what a dark straight strip

down the white bark -

it’s a mystery how they grow
sucker after sucker, leaf after leaf

bare branches in winter; bright

by fall; trembling in summer -
limelike in the limelight of spring

presenting
Populous tremuloides
in starlit snowbanks, featured
performer in the dance of rut

star of not a single table
til the bright eyed browsers come
to nibble at midnight