An Idyl
Upon a gnarly, knotty limbThat fought the current’s crest,Where shocks of reeds peeped o’er the brim,Wild wasps had glued their nest.
And in a sprawling cypress’ grot,Sheltered and safe from flood,Dirt-daubers each had chosen a spotTo shape his house of mud.
In a warm crevice of the barkA basking scorpion clung,With bright blue tail and red-rimmed eyesAnd yellow, twinkling tongue.
A lunging trout flashed in the sun,To do some petty slaughter,And set the spiders all a-runOn little stilts of water.
Toward noon upon the swamp there stoleA deep, cathedral hush,Save where, from sun-splocht bough and bole,Sweet thrush replied to thrush.
An angler came to cast his flyBeneath a baffling tree.I smiled, when I had caught his eye,And he smiled back at me.
When stretched beside a shady elmI watched the dozy heat,Nature was moving in her realm,For I could hear her feet.