Frond
Tell you everything? in patterned shade
beside this little no-name creek inviting
us to hop into the pasture
gone fallow says the dairyman,
gone prodigal gone wonderful
gone magic say the meadow beauties;
tell me while we walk & stop
& walk again, awkward season long past
trout lily & hepatica, even starry chickweed
burst to galaxies of pinpoint seed,
search the verge for any hope
of asters and their summer dreams of disk
& ray & color; barely any corymbed bud
of an idea today, scarce a whisper,
perhaps we both suspect I haven’t much
to tell, no poem likely here, no line
of script that might entwine us closer
to we aren’t quite certain where. Instead
let’s kneel and read these fronds –
what does this fern desire
to teach us, universe of form & hue,
lexicon of texture, stipe & pinnae reaching up
and asking us to touch, in turn turn back
and over each fine feathered wing,
and as we squint to find the secret signatures
of sori perhaps we’ll tell each other
what most likely we’ve known all along.
BILL GRIFFIN is a naturalist and retired family doctor who lives in rural North Carolina. Read more.