It pleases us to think the sun

redeems the logging roads with cane,

with high cicadan orisons,

with fern and black-eyed Susan.

Picking our way amid the slash

we say blackberry rosaries,

we finger their knotted beadwork, one

for the bucket one for me,

as in he loves me not he loves me.

Watching where we eat our prayers

the trees themselves might pity us.

When autumn comes they lose their leaves

by accident, deciduous.