Fragrant fields

invoke your opening shutter:

you build stamens into white resonance.



With the tilt of the lens

you hold back your breath

to halt the photo-blur.



The army of slime mold cells below

silently begins its glacial escape

as your mouth softens in anticipation

of capturing a pristine moment.



The scattered forest tops

shade your eyebrows

with the vertical upheaval

of decades-young canopy.



Can you see? In the clock-stop

stillness of a camera’s blinking eye

you tighten your grip on yourself

while still kneeling lightly

on the floors of nature.



Thus you open places that appear

all at once before you,

and culminate in the narrow beak of a winter bird

that rests momentarily on your shovel

before gratefully returning

to the archeological dig near your feet,

where it exhumes, then eats,

its breakfast of worms.