More Nature Poems

I am compelled to give you Nature, transcending
everything we know, and revealing
what we began to draw close to
when camping last summer
at the Michael Carradine Oasis
and Miniature Golf Course.

Ode to a fluttery pigeon on a high rise ledge with
perfect little statues to perch upon.

No wait,
I saw a little fawn cross my path.
It was so delicate and fearless—it ate from
my bare hands while I wept—and then a dazzling
Monarch Butterfly landed effortlessly on my cheek,
drinking my tears, and it was in this magical moment
that I knew I belonged.

Then again,
The woods really are like otherworldly
places, filled with mystical creatures we can
only hope to understand, actually, they are
better than us. They are pure and it is we
who should learn our faults, remember our necessary
instincts, shed the insistent baggage
of the unnatural world so that we can rise
to the level of ants.

All this, and yet still,
I am reminded of the yellow grasses
blowing like blond hair on the grasslands of Iowa,
in the fields near the university, giving gentle inspiration
to the budding poets inside, blooming with prose,
watering the pages with tears about the overwhelming
beauty of nature, the grandness of it all, the
magnificent oceans and noble platitudes
of trees, with turns of phrase nobody has imagined
before, and profound meanings hidden in the
yellow grasses.

Nature happens like poetry happens. It transcends
when it is transcendent. It rings true, only when it is true,
and it thrives when it is left to its own devices.