Compass Plant
Silene acaulis
A sly wind threads the muck-moated hillocks
drawing reeded breadths
across lichen-rough stone, shuttle humming. What is
that song, I ask
believing I have nothing to lose
in the asking
as open-throated terns cross
the beaming, sunlit taiga
warping sea to sky and sea to sky
and back again
bending each edge until
I am lost entirely in the filling
and dropped, windswept and empty-handed
into the weave of a midnight sun
finishing a tweeded-leaf pattern
tightly felted, bearing
a declination of blooms, their templed faces
bright with answer.
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