Through the spring afternoon the spangled
Fritillary and the red admiral spread
The only information available concerning floating
Orange and scarlet furls of open sky.
The bullfrog is an obvious messenger bringing
Web-toed proclamations of sloughs
And ditches, announcing details of drift
In the easy hang of its white-legged body in the pond.
And the map turtle is the angel of itself
Declaring red-eyed visions of delicacy in slug
Of snail and clam. And snail and clam embody notices
Of suck and draw, the facts of hard-shelled
Slips of living mud.
The quiet in the budded hook
Of the mossy plumatella delivers the still, perfect
Angel of its own silence, and the prayer of the fanning
Blue gill is the form of its breathing message.
The angel of the primrose willow
Is the swaying leaf of its own graceful prayer.
Whistling and scaling just above the tips of the reeds,
The message of the meadowlark creates the shape
Of its reception in the ear. The pattern of muscle
And breath and ripple in the lark’s trilling throat
Is the form of the angel it has always been.
The message that the ear proclaims is the act
Of reception it performs.
Father, this prayer of messengers
I bring to you this afternoon
Is its own message, an angel of good news
In the form of the spring field.
Listen now, for me, to the shape of your ear.
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