Not Flowers

This thing that happens 
 before runner beans;
 a disobedient scarlet 
 searches for a way out
  
 choked in black flies 
 and the tragedy of bees
 and everything focused 
 on metamorphosis 
  
 like this orchid tenderness 
 was the caterpillar part– 
 a small beauty, lost
 in a larger reckoning
  
and they are still,
not flowers
when they fade 
 the way that roses do 

Bodmin Moor

The stag and the worm
and the tenderness of decay
the audacity of wasps 
and the perseverance of grass 
the hunger of wild things 
and the defiance of dirt 
the granite bones 
and the anarchy of nightfall
the silence of birds 
and the rhythm of rain 
and the infinite solitude of poetry