And when we walked through those meadows
Wild beetles galloped by
Spirited painted herds.
Deer with raspberry stains
Swarmed in clouds above our heads
Midsummer air vibrating
With their violin calls:
Remember (was it Williams’ Lark Ascending?)
Strong and sure,
They flew off into canyons
As twilight fell
And swallows burrowed beneath our feet,
Soot-winged, humming miners’ tunes.
Deeper in the forest,
Where the roots reach towards the sky,
We held each other close, murmuring stories
In runes and hieroglyphs.
Salmon swung from vines calling out
Arithmetic and chemical compounds.
We rode two passing oysters to the center,
Dismounted and let them graze on iron ore
And we lay upon translucent ground
Staring into the spreading canopies below,
Red skies above us echoing distant thunder.
We dropped pebbles past the leaves
And said we’d never part,
Watching ripples form and vanish.