Diagnosis Post

Field of flowers, 71

and sunny, the native

intelligence of trees

and owls, bees and

dolphins all now

in the air: what is

the nature of

nature but

a buzz, a shriek, a hum:

a whistle that echoes in the dark,                      what a hoot

deceptive as a mushroom in the wild.

Getting up the hill

wasn’t the hard part

that morning, but

the downward leg,

weak rubber walk,

a mudslide of me                                                     hold on

down a mountain-

side of what if, an

avalanche falling

like the loose

bowels of worry.

These wild flowers

special, precious,

fragile post-picking,                                                help me                                          

their wildness cut out:

they can’t be

zinnias or peonies

or dahlias now.

I am uneven land, a

ridge of regret, furrowed

but fallow, unseeded

under the sun.