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,

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

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