Staring at the mud turtle’s eye
Long enough, he sees concentricity there
For the first time, as if it possessed
Pupil and iris and oracular lid,
As if it grew, forcing its own gene.
The concept is definitely
The cellular arrangement of sight.
The five amber grasses maintaining their seedheads
In the breeze against the sky
Have borne latitude from the beginning,
Secure civility like leaves in their folds.
He discovers persistence in the mouth
Of the caterpillar in the same way
As he discovers clear syrup
On the broken end of the dayflower,
Exactly as he comes accidently upon
The mud crown of the crawfish.
The spotted length of the bullfrog leaping
Lakeward just before the footstep
Is not bull frog, spread and sailing,
But the body of initiative with white glossy belly.
Departure is the wing let loose
By the dandelion, and it does possess
A sparse down and will not be thought of,
Even years later, even in the station
At midnight among the confusing lights,
As separate from that white twist
Of filament drifting.
Nothing is sharp enough to disengage
The butterfly’s path from erraticism.
And freedom is this September field
Covered this far by tree shadows
Through which this child chooses to run
Until he chooses to stop,
And it will be so hereafter.
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