section from July (the plan in this area involved inside-out end-rhymes):

         10

  
         Across the wide ms. river   shedding dough
 and papyrus   and leaping from   junk
 to junk   the lincoln logs nudge
 through dislodged snow   driftwood

  
         and balsam leaves and   patches
 of wet birch scrolled   by heartworms
 glowing under the bark   the storm-
 blown shells of   beaver's feverish scrap-

  
         muddled shields   this is the stripped
 taiga   icebreaking   in early spring
 not unlike what you glimpsed
 through the frozen window   pressed

  
         against the glass   across rays of evening
 through the black oak limbs   peace
 of horizon after   century and seeping century
 of sleeping centurions   a last bronze shell given

  
         away   like a gong, Grandpa   for distant Florence
 swaddled in the haze   of Voronezh hills
 as the cardinal   heart of a wood-dove   swells
 under the wooden ribs   under their rough-

  
         riffled sheath or shield   of Grandma's
 steel-eyed span   the bird   like a grain
 of wheat   (hidden there   in Grandad's
 elevator   beneath   remorse of guards)

  
         piano thread of   Pushkin-pizzicato   violins
 at the end   indeed given   not for the dead
 but for the living   a small knot of dried
 clover   out of mortgaged   left field

  
         shared by forty fingers in quartet
 (thundering from empty oildrum of
 Caesar's steel band's josh rolled-out)
 a stalwart convalescent   sweet   Q-root

      
                                   2.7.2000