MINSTREL WEATHER 



and orange cliffs of lichen, leagues of 

 delicate jungle lost under a fallen leaf. 

 A beetle clad in shining mail presses 

 through the wilderness. A cobalt dragon- 

 fly lights on a shaken palm. Pursuing a 

 rolling hickory nut, the chipmunk brings 

 a hurricane but these are elastic trees. 



That same mischief maker, incurably 

 curious, chases every stranger, shooting 

 along the stone wall and pausing to peer 

 out from the crevices with unregenerate 

 eyes. The handsome but vain woodpecker 

 pounds at the grub-dowered tree he has 

 chosen to persecute. Enormously ingen- 

 uous, the wayside cow lumbers reproach- 

 fully out of the path, knocking the grains 

 of excellent make-believe coffee from the 

 withered dock. The drumming of a par- 

 tridge in his solitary transport sounds 

 where reddened dogwood glorifies a clump 

 of firs. Sometimes the kittle pheasant, 

 hardly at home in our woods, ducks her 

 head and vanishes in the briers. 



Now the harvest moon, yellower than 

 the hunter's moon of ending autumn or 

 the strawberry moon that looks upon 

 June's roses, rises for husking time. It 

 is the last harvest; when the corn is in, 



[58] 



