An oak, prostrate,
after standing
six hundred years,
begins to rot

Insects break down
ringed chronicles,
fungi turn the
hardwood to sponge

Mayflies (before
the big orange
light of evening)
rising and falling

Linnets (on this
mass of plant and
boulder before sky)
sing on evening

A glacier carved
this long valley
slipped into a river
became a stream

Caddisflies gather
fragments of slate
minnoes pick algae
from sediment