Best not step anywhere —
whatever new life you didn’t crush
just means you’ve crushed another
— so dense our biosphere
in the temperate rain forest of Appalachia.
New flowers push up
from the forest floor
from the composting transmutation
of leaves and branches not dead exactly.
A few (money) plants set at the top edge
spill wider and deeper every year,
compounding, while feeding and sharing sex with butterflies.
Thousands of them are marching now,
the apples of May,
but these were the first.
A predictable perpetual surprise.