Red-buzzing-spindle-bud,
Orange-lightning-clover-scale,
Yellow-moon-blowfish-mud,
Green-crater-raindrop-prayer,
Blue-turtle-stamen-flood,
Violet-paw print-sulphur-hail,
Black-birdsong-limestone-sea—
the smallest pea’s brain-symphony.
They’ll break the forest’s velvet sleep
with axes, fires’ glowing eyes.
With fingers feathered omens deep,
while breathing, river, river, why
and how and what their digits creep
with numbers, dead machines that fly,
then river, river glowing blush
of sadness, killing darkness lush.
Grayling ghosts, forgotten fugue,
lumberjack, log, and hook. Buck
whose antlers number twenty-two
will crash the two-legs’ temporal luck
and fold all creatures’ blackest blue—
grayling ghosts, the galax-crux
trans-minnow mud, the acorn
sprouting fish-dust form.