Sep 11
Black ball maters turn half red when they’re ripe.
Not quite the season’s last ones, but getting close.
Keeping the path clear, through the hay field,
past the garden shed, to the compost.
Can be seen from space.
Mowing standard: grass no more than one snake deep.
Sterilized old chimney rocks built around the culvert
over the north branch of the branch,
forty years ago, all grown in.
Chocolate veined ferns.
The warning, the promise,
it’s starting to fall fast.
Sep 2
Stem-fed stem-feeding factories alive in the air
pull energy from the sun
pull water and minerals from the earth
to build themselves
and roots and flowers and fruit.
An exquisite geometry
grooms every petal and vein
fans up in three dimensions
while competing in four
with every neighbor
for airspace and sunlight.
They employ strategies
of shape and color and texture,
delicacy or density,
to finish cycles of a minute or a day or a year
as they thrive
to amaze and delight human eyes.
