Steve Klepetar
Here where you wander by lazy stream, slippery,
scaling soaked rocks and everywhere earthy
scent of ferns, cattails and water lilies bobbing,
bright salamanders creeping over mud, this is the land
of sleep, dreamscape above gem-painted cavern walls.
Find your memory well, drink deep in language
of sleep, let your thirst blossom over pale willow
green, let your hunger swell in a chorus of frogs.
Never again has rain bent so far down to this province
of brush. In undergrowth tongues spell out magic names—
Shagbark and Yellow Birch, Chokecherry, Black Ash
and Slippery Elm, your body fusing bark and root, apple,
acorn and wild fig, windy wet leaves in violent beguine.
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Steve Klepetar teaches literature and writing at Saint Cloud State University in Minnesota.
