83
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.