Green Words

Through the rain, the hollow
clatter of the woodpecker’s
beak tests the mettle of the forest.
The wood runs down and mud
sucks at my boots.

In the owl’s pallets
the fine bones of field mice
swallowed whole
crack underfoot.

(Sticks are to teeth what bones are to tired fingers
picking: I’ve enlisted sets of them
jobsworths to get the whittling done
down to where the sap is).

Leafless, the winter was all sound
without signification.

Spring is an invocation
exhuming a green
etymology from the stark
and apparent form of things.