Under our porch
a child’s way opens:
Chameleon fiddleheads,
lizard-shades of ferns
licking toward light.
Colonies of sowbugs,
moon-men clambering over
asteroids of wet wood.
Fungus frills
ringed and vaporous
as pale saturns.
Glutinous slugs,
amoeban mutants
expelled from ark.
A leaf shrivelled
and shredded
like cast-off snakeskin,
now a webbed
constellation patrolled
by a wolf spider.
The dank and dark
strain. This is enough.
Beneath us insists
a damp, angelic spring.