—to see

only the stubborn dross of jade
sucked back to a cherry pit
spat against Eden’s orchards,
pests and insects, emerald borers
and bottleflies clotting an ulcerous carcass—
the blackstrap tack of Death
draped over an ash tree, beckoning,
 
Wouldn’t you rather have simply been
a starling winnowing grubs from the clover,
 
gay though all too easy prey for the
Cooper’s hawk cocked in an oak’s crotch—albeit
                                                     then
some swollen moment summons
the sun cracked clean 
from a sluthering veil
                and the vale explodes
                  in its envious greens,
       all the sorrel and sagescrub dreamily preening like
 
paint should cinch some sagging canvas,
smudge against gangly slate
the City of Dis or lurid Atlantis—