When the earth moves it rotates on its axis, orbiting
The sun in one twenty-four hour period, therefore
The tides rise and fall, wax and wane, and Emily
Coalesces with the obtuse mind in nature
Ensuing upon a quiet afternoon with her
Feminine protocol that not all things
In nature are equal, or of equal value.

At night she bathes by a tiny rivulet
And the crisp stars and quarter moon
Adorn her lithe and tawny body
With adulation and amulets,
A fact simile of all odd and rare belongings
That grope the mind for metaphors
Profoundest in the singular moment.

Calculations well endowed, I pursue her
Among the calla lillies and dissect her movements
Like an ancient flow chart in order that I might understand
The spring rhythms and windfalls of my own misapprehensions;
In this I am no better than a dung beetle, I wince
To think that she will one day lie asleep for eternity
And I shall no longer grasp her foliage green and tender bodaciousness.