ECOSYSTEM

 

1

 

That somber greens — ferns, conifers, cycads — flittered

              with fruit and bloom

 

That the earth’s face pinked, reddened, honeycombed glow

 

That angiosperm came to outnumber gymnosperm

 

That they seduced insect, bat and bird, flaunting colors

             and smelling good

 

That they multiplied, hybridized, colonized east to far,

             north to near, valley to peak

 

2

 

That brush crowded out burr oak and big bluestem grass

That weed evicted sweet brown-eyed Susan

That buckthorn unseated cream gentian and violet bush clover

 

3

 

That there had been prairie-fringed orchid, Indian grass,

             large-leafed aster

 

That there had grown starry campion and bottlebrush buckeye

 

That there had flown great spangled fritillaries, Edwards’ Hairstreaks

 

That Cooper’s hawks, eastern bluebirds, Appalachian browns

             had manned the trees

 

4

 

That what was mis-taken reappeared

 

That flowers strummed in the trees

 

5

 

That they made it and made it, new, now, and again

 

That it is possible, possible, spreading, and so