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[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

In the leaf's veins and midrib,
the mushroom's gill: no irony.

In the stamen and pistil,
the pip of the grape, making

occurs without suffering,
one is led to suppose.

When the fawn sprawled in a thicket
stiffens, a council of birds

descends and pecks
until its chest is crimson.

The badger's project
is isolation: he knows

only to burrow and sleep,
while the spider spins

in a web wider, more intricate
than his, though this crisis

does not cross his mind.
He proceeds without comment.

Then what is one to do
on a night like this, bright almost

as day, when the lavender moon,
burdened with light,

is near enough to brush
the trees and power lines, when this fern

rooted at the road's edge
casts the shadow of an infant's ribs?

Chris Forhan
The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars
2003 Morse Poetry Prize
Northeastern University Press