The Eastern Forest [Susan Brind Morrow]

 

The horns of a deer are still soft in September
An owls face is mostly ear

 

Fire in the trees at the end of winter
When red tongues of color run under their skin

 

The season of death begins with strokes of red
Its cold breath pours over the hill that swallowed the sun

 

Beeswax and fruit
And honey that tastes like raspberries thick with crystal in the comb
The full to bursting days of leaves on East Lake Road
A map of color in the fall between the fields and lake,
Sharp prickling smell of winter-
Pale blues, crushed powder snow,
The early green of winter wheat
In upturned earth; and summer’s riches
Seaweed and fish slime and stones baked on the shore,
And wreathes of rainbowed gasoline that flow
Under the dock where the carp spawn at night
In the shallow water-
The good things about Geneva
Almost make me forget its gloom,
And how my heart was broken there-
Torn into a blossoming wound,
The rose grows out of the wound

                                *

Unsheathed deer gut by the stream
A black living rust licks it down to the soft stones
Soaked in green light.
A leopard frog froze in the water last night

 

Dozens of snails in rose translucent shells
And yellow
Plastered like closing flowers on the dead stems of reeds

Now in cinders
Cedar has leaves 
Like the skin of a salamander

 

Her hair was like the fur of a winter animal
And her hands were webbed like stars

 

Scraps of color in the forest
the head of the red-bellied woodpecker
satin against the dead wood

 

She made a pillow out of the dress
Dragonflies settled around it with a light papery scratch
Throbbing salamander bodies- and glossy prismed eyes
Funny how insects prefer certain colors

 

And beyond them the mirrory river
Full of forming stars

 

Soft as a newborn, milk fed fawn
Left in the woods by its horned mother and afraid

 

Black vultures shadowing each other around the white rock

 

Pale blue bone white days of winter
When the sun is warm and the wind is bitter

 

David found a luna moth- or had my mother found it for him
Pressed against the screen door of the kitchen, a left-over from the night.
It’s huge delicate wings were the most deliciously cool shade of green I had ever seen,
Such a fine unusual shade of green I could taste it in my mouth,
Feel it’s delicate tissue on the tips of my fingers.
How could I draw such a rare color into myself?
I could only do this, taste and feel the color, as I looked at the moth

 

Clouds closed the sky like a fist

 

The silver light has retreated onto the branch tips, silvering now only the shells of the trees.
It is November. The air is cold, and there is still a burning color to things
The red squirrels are whistling in the maples by the road.

 

On the dry stoney side of the creekbed in spring were efts the color of cinnabar flecked with gold, their eyed skin as soft as wet sand. The solitary stalk of a cardinal flower, its rare deep red the true scarlet of nature, would stand in the fresh green light of the wet wood like a hidden flag.