That is the education of a tree,
one stick by which morality, aesthetics,
music, and politics are taught,
whether a pecan or plum;

and that the wire,
although I hate to mention the wire,
and reddish apples and limbs so low
they drag on the ground;

and that the confluence where
five branches start, a university
hard by the lonely peach;
and that a nest for the bluebird,

a wooden box with a hole
too small for the sparrow;
and that is the loaded branch of the pitch pine where
I saw the perfect body and heard the song

in secret oh I swear you swallows I swear
you sunlight on the salt grass what the blue jay
called silence what the rose hip
and the dead raccoon called home you crows.