Alter

Increasingly, insects texture
The airier outbursts of birds.
The leaves of shrubs and grasses reach
The lowest branches of young trees.

Summer is coming together
At the summit of the mesa,
This flat tray on the fingertips
Of its calm volcanic server.

Winter was quiet. Spring was sparse
At first, but everything’s thickened.
Even the light grows more petals.
Laziness, heat, and urgency

Plait the activities of life
In green-gold braids of wanting things.
I testify as a witness
Who, like summer, will not persist

Except in the eerie sameness
That is change at its most cyclic,
This terrible sort of witness
Who turns into what’s been witnessed.