Jack-in-the-pulpit, brown-streaked and hooded,
preaches to primeval ferns.
Poison ivy inveigles
these low-lying woods.
The influence
of wild-carrot heads, road-side
orange hawkweed, mulberry,
milkweed, purple vetch. Maple-tree light
beguiles the liquid afternoon air, leaches
logic, riffles the grey leather beech.
The past develops under water,
film fixing invisible forms
the way dreams reveal
what was already there.
Bullfrogs horn the first part of night,
half in, half out of the lake;
each domed note baritones
the last, migrations of sound.
The past arranges itself
under duress. Loneliness leaves
its wet-animal print, darker on dark.
Under the influence,
the weight of the land, sleight
of wave-length configures a life.