Arboretum Diary

july 19


cloudy but warm, no breeze


The tunnel under the highway
links the Leopold Pines to Grady Tract
something like a dark portal
from tall prairie to oak savannah where,
in no more than a hundred steps,
out beyond the circle of noise made
by grinding brakes and screaming rubber,
soft hills carry silence close inside
brown pockets full of orange lilies
and buzzing butterfly weed.
Off along the far side of an old farm
fenceline three cranes walk through
a field like slowly striding farmers,
hunched forward, hands tied loosely
together at their backs, inspecting
here and there the effect of recent
rain on their careful plantings.