Woods Talk

Tiny flower, obscure

citizen doing your best

to draw attention to yourself,

to the five-petalled busyness

you hold up to the world

come earliest spring

on the slope of this mountain.

Loosely intended for anything

that might care, your yellow

message stands as succinctly

for yourself as for the rest

of us-the insolent crow

high over my shoulder,

the young dog snuffling his way

to ecstasy through last year's

dead leaves, and the dead ash

lying across the stump

where I sit down to record

the scarcely noticeable

words of this address.