The leaves of summer fill

What, just the other day, had seemed a bare

Wildness of branches shaking in the frigid air.

The world works its green will;

Its humid atmosphere

Summons us to a strident idleness,

Makes warm suggestion even leisure can oppress,

And heaven draw too near.

As if put off by ease

And anxious daily freedom earn its keep,

My daughter hunts for mushrooms where the shade is deep

And breaks the bullfrogs’ peace.

She nets a lifeless snake

And washes clean a clutch of squirrel bones,

Before she dries them in the sun. What nature loans,

She with delight will take;

As in that twilight, say,

When, though the hour was late, the sky shone blue

And she appeared before us all with something new

Discovered in her play.

Her palms held out to share,

She cupped two spare-downed hatchlings like a nest,

Their dark bald heads and bright beaks chirping without rest

In protest at such care.

It seemed then right and fit

To stare upon this gift with fascination,

Before we said, what had been borrowed from creation

Should be returned to it.