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.

c.1980