Shrouded in branches under the rhododendron thicket, I remember
A time when I did not second guess at being brave.
Peering through a looking glass
My world tilted on the edge of
the universe--
To create is to die a thousand times as an imposter,
Reincarnate as a master.
Beheading the strawberry flower
early in the season
to yield more fruit, later.
In moments of insanity
real logical progress happens,
masked in spontaneity.

The blue jay swaddling seeds in its crop
Mechanical bird with singular purpose
Notes a mechanical song,
Lives to forget--

For every acorn he caches in rotten trunks
Or clay soils, with abandon
Another rebirth
He gives life to the forests by inadvertently,
statistically, giving one seed a much greater
chance of ever becoming something
than the rest.