Canatara

(for Colleen)

Even with lethal Tree and indomitable leaf
  the woods
breathe in frost and breathe out
  warm sandy shores,
  a water's cresting scent

A forest is partly eye of the slender girl
  who flits the beaches,
teary heart of a lake enthroned
  in mud, slow settling—
  a forest of frost,

gleaming fruit & elk who maunder

  Given a halo
of mayflies & berry, half sun-glorying,
  half tree-glorying,
  a forest can shine

so far out into brush the bluejay
  lives inside it,
easily with the crow & the hawk cliff

  Acorns lie inside, too
  and the hatching nest

Roots and the mole with arcing back,
  receptive & low,
make a park of a forest, anywhere
  just as the shiny roe
  on all four elfin feet,

lives above all & after all in rain,
  lips berry-stained,
and skims Huron's warm steamy sands
  & looks like a lost girl
  sadly banished from the trails