Every Leaf, Every Page, Every Poem, A Patch
I lament the dry paper that became of the orchids
and waterlilies, the skin of weathered women
or an aging snake that slipped out of itself like a condom.
Autumn in my earth mind, I'm consoled by the stars
gleaming through the leafless trees of my emotions.
The whole forest floor, a sodden library underfoot,
trying to get to the roots of things like etymologists
reverentially deciphering the cartouches of dynastic words
that were once as common as the Huron all through these woods
until smallpox, the Jesuit, and the decultifying schools
that savaged their magic with white, and taught them
to turn the other cheek to the dark side of the moon,
brought on an onslaught of the Iroquois who finished the job
a few beaver pelts, an arquebus, and Champlain
in a war canoe, without really wanting to, had begun.