Your forest grows as green as love.

Your ferns move dappling near the ground,

and moss they curl on curls above

stones that your glacier dappled down.

Your night is sadness, well-contained

within the sap that runs the stem

of plants that grow along the night

and root in morning. Joy finds them,

and oceans, vast because they are lost

(like ruined roads left on the land)

take your kind waters home each time

that they, pushing raptly at the sand,

make tides with your evaporate rain.

The ocean is at peace again.

Far algae grows, the blue stays smooth;

in the dim light, the beach is soothed.

Your forest grows as green as love,

your night is sadness well-contained,

and oceans, lost because they are vast,

make tides with your evaporate rain.

From Spells (First published in National Poetry Review)