If Not Mercy

Out stumbling through the dogwood's

lush constellations, earth littered with

moldering stars, I nearly burst a caterpillar

beneath my feet which, just this once,

might have been a mercy, in the throes

of death as he was, all the elegance of

his articulated segments given over

to a terrible writhing. I place him in the soil

beneath a violet heaven of crested iris,

and if he pleads for some release beyond

my timid interventions, it doesn’t come.

Under the silken cover of petals,

the deft calligraphy of pines inked with shadow,

nature unspools its pitiless machinations—

the joints' faltering scaffold, nerves'

dendritic scorch of lightning. Already listing

toward ruin, I have begged to let the dogged creep

of turkey tail have its way, but my body persists,

step by aching step. I confess I’ve grown bitter,

though I've praised nature’s grim glory,

seen the graceful logic of rot. Fine then,

I'll be patient. Let my borrowed atoms

unstitch themselves in their fervent desire

to return to silicate sparks of dust, molecules

caught in the creek’s pulse—let the body

erode toward a beauty more enduring.