Haiku and one about conifers

Great Blue Heron sits

Great Horned Owl attacks the nest

Who is the Greatest

Trash

Discarded food wrappers

Stepped on

With one lazy ant listlessly triple checking

For remains

That the squirrel missed

And the mouse

And the legions of other, more industrious ants

Resin drizzled, or maybe rosin dappled,

Flecked with sticky tar-lets

Last fall’s trash

Useless,

Unless-

They’ve all missed one tiny conifer seed

In which case

In time

With luck

Through battles too slow to attend

For light

For Earth

From gnawing teeth

From gnashing pincers

From fungal blight

From the toothless, stomach-acid mouths of slugs and snails

In time

And in more time

And still more,

This piece of forest trash may

With luck

With light

With Earth

With water enough to slake its thirst

Morph

Into a forest giant

Mast straight

With a full rigging of green sails

Billowing yellow dust in hopes of birthing more

Resin drizzled, or maybe rosin dappled

Trash,

Bill Stewart             May, 2012

Harboring dreams of future trees.

Nature Poetry

Nature Poems:  We are working on Nature Poetry for the East Leverett Trails. I wrote a couple of poems inspired by our field trip there. The first is sort of a "Who am I" poem:

Goodyera pubescens

By Bill Stewart

May 15, 2012

I see it at my feet

And I freeze.

That distinctive pattern on its back--

No mistaking rattlesnake.

I wait for the ch-ch-ch-chchch

Warning me to leave this varmint alone

But it’s silent as the grave.

Buried in the leaves,

Veins pulsing slightly in the wind,

I shoot it.

And it’s frozen forever in my lens:

Rattlesnake plantain