Staunch point notwithstanding,
I see no contrasting pattern of life
against the clutter
of summer's past profusion:
tangles of light and shadow,
dead grasses, nearly woven,
gray on brown and random.

But this trembling point is the yield
of passion carefully bred
and carried in every gene.

Despite my faulty seeing,
the reward of patient stalking
gives the lie, without warning,
to my doubts;
suddenly we are standing,
shaken
in the eye of a covey storm!

____________

- by Roy Beckemeyer, 1977