What is this compulsion to peer
into the cathedral formed
by the humid arms of trees?
Of course there is no way to count
the fruit before their prime.
They are so plain now,
only streaked a little
on the outside— faintest tinge
of plum beginning to verge on brown.
And the fireflies pulse, with their own
messages of ruse and subterfuge: warm
one moment, then cold, then gone.