Poem: Marsh Marigold

In the tangled darkness

of freshet-fed trough,

that glint, life

in rut not

unbeautiful

sheen of rainbow slick, shattered sky the wonder:

glory humble in dead leaves,

last year’s chaff,

shadowed by skunk cabbage

smell of the deep

devoted doubt of spring

Only in April

this particular psalm:

hum that comes

from the birth and death

of such small things

This article appears in December 2015.