The cardinals are in from the meadow,

sparking in the thicket. Ever misplaced,

ever immoderate of hue, they scuttle

in the aspens—sweep of wing, slight wake,

the leaves a clatter of silverlings. Bedewed,

the thatch underfoot sponges, the spider's web

spreads a screen of pearls.

In a hollow uphill

from the abandoned town, the water-table

tops the soil. Low the turlough

in its occasional bed, runoff -cold

and day-shadowed, flat glass

pressed into a slump of land.

It will leave the meadow matted when it drains.

Grasses strow the surface, mutinous grasses

stretch and bow along the ridge.

But you—no bird, no fuss of grasses, you—

a leathern, a tight coil of fibers,

a honey-throated shambles.

You are exquisite. You are better

left to the imagination, better in your traces:

the timber pitched against the incline angle,

postholes stitching the edge of the pasture,

a spill of granite at the quarry lip, your song

wording cardinal, turlough, and town,

and, at the mouth of the canyon, the flowers

cupped like pinnae, ground littered

with spilt seedpods, tender cotyledons

cracked and agape, and me, breaking

off flowers, saying their names:

Here is the blazing star. Here is the deer's ear

opening its tiny, white symmetry.

Here is the fireweed, green buds

breaking to red, a bouquet of soldering irons.