Natural Medicine (for Penn)

She came at my request, at last. And in reply to my, "What can it be?"

said sagely, taking a close look around—

"Look, it's as if someone's stippled a sunset here, & mixed in ravens;

stars don't shine but snarl and snake

The bass that bite lie dead with their pink gills open, washed ashore,

and say, 'Take the spinners from my heart'

Jays crowd round the jagged moon, or else go careering off by themselves:

I see their crests through slate-grey clouds

And in the tree's gnarly sac the heartless soulless eyes of a crab appear,

or heartless lily bees

The sun that tenderly and shyly eggs on shoots, somewhere somehow

leaves a pale blackberry soil

And where there used to be the ash-tree's calm is the fir’s languorous look,

spongy & scaly, not a drop of resin left"

Sweeping her hand over the meadows, a final time, the muse of Kilally said,

in reply to my "What can it be?"

"The soulless crab that moves low in the night, over gravel roads, stiff-legged

will burrow soon & lie with the heart”

(2010)