It has taught us sway, unsway,
to mimic its crown
browsyful in the banqueting wind.

The last storm laid it down, here,
where dew nests in the grass
like the eyes of a field of serpents.

There must be a word for how light finds one
sitting on a fallen cedar,
the stand in their burled tongue

adding a verse in the dusty croon of us,
the moon candling in the clouds
and wandering through the trees,

everything painted shades of soot
and raven, of obsidian and snakeback,
the wind a suggestion of cello,

the low chorus of rot building, a vigil of ants
marking the mossroot concourse
through lilytongue and hellebore —

if you slow their song, the crickets become
tremulous, vibratory, haunting as a choir
where no choir should be,

where the ants gauge our footfalls,
everything bated,
and as we move, they move.