Tell Us, Who Do You Love?

In the dense garden of Erasmus

Darwin, nature is to advantage

Dressed and placed upon a pedestal—

Slow slides the painted snail, the gilded

Fly smooths his fine down, and various

Other lives make themselves attractive.

Most people fall in love with their own

Lives and maybe the lives of loved ones,

As families get called in the news,

But a few large-hearted animals

Seem to fall head over heels for life

As life itself, the whole tangled bank.

Doesn’t stop them from eating their meals,

But a certain ecstasy takes them

Whenever they’re describing nature.

Good for them, botanical writers

And lovers of the exotic words

That name varieties precisely.

We feel about them as about Zen

Monastic poets—slight suspicion

Of polyamory, bigamy

At least. Nature or enlightenment

May be their object, but their language

Is the other lover. When they chant

Verse in honor of their beloved

Gardens, phrases singing selflessly,

It feels like the words are what’s caressed.