The Arborist

there is, he says, a holiness
in days of change
just as in the driftless,
the windrow, the common nighthawk

so too the fish of twilight,
mayflies and the face
of the river, a kiss, firs’
brush of nettle with nettle on leaf

some say there’s a skeleton out here
somewhere, a symbol of cleanliness,
spread ashes, a cherry tree

there is a drop cloth, tyvek, dacron
a swather a bailer a rake
half a life in this husbandry

in the tall grasses what do we do
with the old stick but walk with it,
find its origin, climb, and sit