Cycle

The sun hangs hot and heavy
scorching the kind blue bowl of sky
the restless lake below.
On the forest floor ferns uncurl
forget-me-nots stipple grasses
the leg-awkward crease of a heron
throws shade across
a staircase of vertebrae
linked to the horn-heavy skull
of a buck    cavities still matted
with hair     gaping with death.

Fresh enough not to deny
familiarity with life
it shines chalk-white
glancing sunrays hosting death
wriggling with larvae
the grimness of a struggle with winter.

Canoes sluice the water nearby
that ending. Fish lunge the surface
of the lake soupy with tadpoles
        turtles and panfish.
A killdeer breaks the elegaic silence
rising on a startled note
        hiking its cries
through the silence of new life.