​What tells the cell to be a cell?
What causes the cilia to sweep?
What causes atoms to congregate, to twitch,
Until the mountain goat’s leap?

Before there is life, there is will.
And after there is life, there is will.
We have will, or will has us,
The core of existence, of skill.

We are the caretakers, the foresters,
The wardens, rangeland specialists,
More than any housing manager
Consulting with phenomenologists.

When we were small, we had to tame
The forest. We wouldn’t let the bear
Tear loose, we broke the branches,
We turned the swamp into a thoroughfare.

We build the cabin in the woods,
At every stage, it grew better,
The fireplace snapped and whooshed
It illumined the red of the setter.


Beetles, wolverine, lynx, aspen
And beavers, cold, shaded pools
For fish, willow stands, magpies,
A repaired and complex order rules,

The slap of a beaver tail upon
The stream, the cougar slinking,
The wolf’s unnerving eyes, smaller
Herds of elk along the river drinking.

To break this now would break the woods,
Along the timberline, we don’t
Know what to do—what will feed
The eagles, the returning wolves won’t

Make the winters harder, the jackal
And the grizzly bear rearing,
The fleeing vole under the cottonwood,
And the unhurrying sunlight in the clearing.

​A clear mind, a clean forest,
Kayaking in frigid waters, a wall
Of snow and ice crashing in 
The frozen bay, and it all,

The spray, the bobbing water,
The white-blue sky, the prickly
Coldness of the sunny air,
The shivers that seize you quickly,

Reveal a light that is a presence,
That is a wealth, that is settled,
Until we are floating, until this is
A higher world, until the petaled

Creepers strain their pistils,
Until planets swing within us,
Grave, rich in metals and in
Fir forests, rich, drizzling nimbus

Clouds on plains of buildings,
And we ourselves grow more wealthy
In colors that glance through us
And infuse with green and stealthy

Luminescent buildings that extend
Dizzyingly over a misting
Waterfall, and we are prepared 
Above the ground, listing

Perilously into the air,
To do the most tremendous deeds.
Finally, it is everyone, an
Entire nation, a field of seeds,

Then the sunlight layers the field,
And it is blessed with crackling wheat,
Hard red spring wheat, prepared
For spring, the fertile heat

Of June, the blackbirds and the
Moles, the memory of age-old
Farmers and the covenant they swore,
The earth, the river and the gold.

​He was a simple man. His trees
Were huge, one night he heard
An owl in their branches. His home
Was capacious, airy, a cat purred

On the counterpane. Most of all,
It felt alive, in it you felt
Encompassed, elevated, inspired,
Here, where your own blood brother dwelt.

​The bear is wading through the river
If only I could describe its
Matted hair, its heaviness,
The movement of its clumsy mitts,

The river’s flash, its glinting salmon,
The churning of the water, they
Come from the bear. Where the river
Flows, aspens grow, raccoons play,

Twisting vines, turtles tangled
In the scrub. Now men stand at
The river. They are taking data,
Unpeeling the secrets of moths and bats,

In the river, they find the salmon
And their eggs, clubtails, mayflies,
And the river branches into streams
Of northern pike, of walleyes,

And northern leopard frogs, and
Elk and moose, with their feet
In the mud, soaking moss and snails,
The bears catch the salmon, they eat,

At night, the men lie on the backs,
They watch the dizzying stars,
They rejoice in the smell of pine
Along the river they find feldspars,

The river will feed them, its
Rapids will froth for their children,
The beaver will swim from its lodge,
The bear will lumber out of its den.

​The dark matter wind is even more
Grand, we cannot see their braided
Strands, here are black pockets of
Life, splendor unfaded,

The tapestry hangs with secret
Griffins, with unicorns, with
Princesses, with angels, with
Two-headed dogs, (maybe a monolith),

Weakly interacting massive particles
Streak through our most secret parts,
The citric acid function, the heel
And sole, the apothecary’s arts,

Opening the windows of the sky,
A tree whose massive leaves
Are fresh, the air is glittering,
In one direction, soldiers in greaves,

In the other, children on a hill,
This mighty observatory watches,
It processes the data of unfolding spirals
Of galaxies and of laboratory swatches,

It regulates the wind, amoebae, heart cells
Repairing damage, it observes the earth,
Ceres, the mantel and the core,
To their apotheosis from their birth,

It listens to the speech of stars,
Records its thoughts on a parchment scroll,
Thoughts that are larger than a turmoil
Of space, that exceed the scope of whole

Nations, of Albert Einstein. It is
A planet of swift streams, aquifers
Where winds blow, the life straining
From grass, from quail, trees of myrrh,

Patterns in the soil and air,
Winds that seem to speak, herds
Of wildebeests,waterholes, 
Acacia trees chittering with birds.

​The air we breathe blends its nitrogen
And oxygen, its argon and trace
Gases, and in your mind, thought
And images swirl and interrelate,

They dive into each other,
They soar out of each other,
And it is all hidden from our 
Eyes. There is always mother,

Even when father has organized
The laundry folding, the best
Way to dry the dishes, mother
Gives us our medicine, a compound blessed

And we feel nothing. The man who
Evaluates houses points out
The items needing repair,
Where the joining parts need grout,

And you are leaping in the air
And the house is far below you.
We leave no place empty,
The wind, through and through,

Blends its own towns and its
Streets, its forests, Fort Smith
In the Northwestern Territories,
Mathematical systems and myth.

​This is a strong house. Believe
In it. Believe that you can live
In it, believe its creaks, its slats
Of light, its maple floor, its massive

Foundations, the wood, the brick,
The sun shines through the lidded
Windows, it shines a knot on the
Lined knot where a sole skidded,

But believe, believe in the golden-
Wood staircase, that the house stands
Alive, as though it is a beam of
The sun, a small sun the expands,

Because even a mote that floats
Has no set history, no set pulse,
It is beyond rules, though it has rules,
It is wisdom, gravity and impulse,

So believe in a home that is bright,
That is clear, in a home that uses
The light of the sun, which rolls
Along its corridors and whitely fuses.

​Quite a lot of weeds here, also
Crimson anemones and lilac cyclamens
At night the moon leaves patches of light
That spill into the black dens

Of the black bears. Let us walk
Through this forest. Let us leave
It a forest but make it a garden,
Birds that whir after they weave

Their nests, strong trunks, moss,
A wind blows, corrugated
Tree bark, it is a stillness,
Just the same fuzzy leaves, rotated

To reflect the blazing sun,
Its 93 million miles, so that
Each tendril and stone, each fallen
Pinecone, vibrate with a supernal chat,

The forest is a gift card sent
By Mandelbrot, its harsh
Corners are muted, the hornets
No longer sting, on the marsh

The peepers sing with longing,
The field awakens, says, I am
A field, the rose reveals her
Petals (to us, a cryptogram).

​Out there in Nepal, entire landscapes
Are wiped away, just a lot of scree,
Just gray rocks, just paths that 
Go wrong, heaped up debris,

Where porters carried knives, where
It was dangerous to sleep, where
The women huddled together, where
Before dawn a rumble ruffled the air,

The rocks shook, fissures
Flew across the earth, and shook
The caravans. The pikas trembled,
Stunted hemlocks along a dry brook,

And at night the freezing stars
Called for rebellion, quakes,
For war, overturning hillside
Villages, fevers, aches

And rot, until a wind blew
Back from the south, jangled
Doors, sap flowed into roots,
Rain fell, knots were untangled,

The villagers bent under piles of brush.
Light flashed and darkness swallowed
The valleys, winds rose and swooped,
The sun rose and the hawks followed,

The waterfall crashed, it rorared
And cried, the path shone and glinted
From the rain and the sahdows
Were crisp and black and indigo-tinted. 

​We are looking for the road.
Sometimes a wind blows.
Sometimes the land is thirsty.
The thirst doesn’t cease, it blows

Across the plain, it spins
Through the town, it is in
The bears and in the woodpeckers.
Sometimes we feel it on our skin,

Its caress is fond, sometimes
Streaks of lightning electrify
The sky. Sometimes we are riding
Where the griffin vultures fly,

Sometimes we burrow amidst moles.
This thirst always lives in us,
Whether or not  we know, a crack
In the earth, a sinuous

Hint of an aquifer, a scent
Of water, the water pulsing cold,
The kudu with its twisted horns
Drinks, frightened, magnificent, bold.