vii.

Each season with its privileges.
Fat turkeys strutting their wings,
families of deer, mutations of bugs,
worms in the garden, ants drunk
on the sweet sap of peonies (they crawl
in & open the petals) & beyond the horses
trapped in their asylum, nudging their long
noses into troughs, in winter
backs saddled with navy blankets,
& all day the sighing, whether wind,
or horses, or an ailing deer.