Wild

 

Measure my wild. Down to my last leaf,

my furled, my desiccated. This deciduousness,

this bloom. Calculate my xylem levels.

My spore count, fungal, scarlet

in a bluebell glade. Whoosh,

where the foliage closes on a great cat.

Test me: how many tigers in my jungle,

how many lions at roam? Map my rivers,

deltas, estuaries. Mollusc, whelk, worm.

Monitor my silt. Do I have spoonbills, 

high-stepping and watchful over the darting fish?

Rainfall on pines. Dappled sunlight

in my dells. Under moss, the fallen log, under

the log the hibernating hedgehog. Late my dates,

or soon? Return of the albatross, godwits

gathering. What clouds me, shifts,

but: indigo thunder-stack, pink wisp. Count the mice.

What will survive me, O my cockroaches, O my lice?

Scaffold me with metal, cage me in glass, tube me,

needle me, fill me, flush me. Saline solution:

the ocean. Oxygen therapy: the…