First, go to Hell—I mean, seek out the Halls
                of Hades and his consort,
Persephone the Dread. Here’s what you’ll need:

Like God, I get up early, walk out in the cool of the day
to see my handiwork. Oh, Nathaniel, thou hast not done well!
I’ll post a sign: Henry Thoreau, poet and pencil-maker,

Once it was out of sight, that sea that can spill
like ink across the map of any country.
We’d heard of it, were told that all roads lead

Roots and rocks emerge from the forest path like half-
      spoken thoughts,
or as Thoreau would put it, the earth is saying “rock.” And

A man with angelic locks and a woman
with no head are sketched in flagrante, standing
up. Or rather, he stands, while she levitates

During the screened-porch dinner of corn on the cob,
pork chops, tomatoes like red meat, warm and bleeding,
I felt the first stirring. The air moved, cracked the damp

A round white troll with a black, greasy
heart shuddered and hummed “Diogenes,
Diogenes,” while it sloshed the wash.

Our forest, our ocean, it stretched westward from the edge
of town. Knee-high at fireworks time, taller by August
than any child. Flat as a bed the prairie, spread quilt