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Nostoc Man 

...The nocturnal pollution of some plethorical and wanton star, or rather excrement blown from the nostrils of some rheumatic planet...like a jelly...the ruins of a star fallen.

                    —Jan Baptist van Helmont, 1650

A shrill hawk’s to and fro,

an owl’s goofy consecration, 

the windows wide to rain 

like sleeping in an aquarium

or a moss diorama beside a gorge.

Mandragora under a bell, a forest house

walled with glass is engrafted

onto hairy woods, songbird and stag.

Soggy fugue, the early-autumn  

steam is a gelatinous tisane.

I check the crawl-space trap

and carry a tattered mouse

into the trees, watch it scuttle

a pine limb and climb a dogwood.

Freeing the prey, as it were.