Fetching the long path
from the thaw
scampering blood vessel
lumpen poet returning
from the aching woods
holding a wishbone twig
and a pants-sized thatch of moss
having stumbled to glory,
having heaved and won a grey goatee,
a staff for dowsing
and declaring spaces named,
his fondest error

Horns make a hollow trunk
burrowed halls and paint spaces
belts bright and dim operators
tilling borrowed soil; his teeth
a mask of time and tobacco
only the wit's eye
that looks from the clouds
glinting sight
he said he would be with moisture

Taking out the stick to mark
a cornered goal, a blue chalk
mark above each eyebrow,
sorting mushroom tops and stems
you sit in sweatpants and jersey smoking
the lichens of an old stone wall.