in plain air 161
And These
and these
Out of an occasional delight
in those icy vacancies
that stretch away
from the `comforting stench
of comrades'
mostly
of a simple, bi-partite
structure like the fungus
living with an alga
to make a lichen, some
2,000 species of which
inhabit the Arctic, fastened
to rocks, pieces of bone,
cast-off antlers, so cold
and barren and dark
their situation, some of them
may grow only during one
day in a year -- in the long
darkness each bright patch
holding fast to its object.
five o'clock
Just before hitting the turn
and entering the down ramp
hunched up and tensed again
and the little new moon in the west
by herself in the early darkness
cocked backward so jauntily
on the steep downward slope
into the wintry ocean