I come from frog jelly in vernal pools
and trailside ephemerals:
trout lily, wood iris, hepatica,
windflower, bloodroot, spring beauty,
the common names incantations,
my discoveries amidst the leaf litter
their own enchantments.

Magic sprouts beneath my feet
in mosses and mushrooms,
lover of the shadowy places
where moisture and mystery collect,
seeping out through mountain springs
and into birch-bark funnels for patient collecting.

I come from azalea forts and aged
magnolia bowers, wonderlands
for hiding and climbing, refuges for
small adventurers and weary young hearts.

I come from Liriodendron tulipifera,
Quercus alba, and Acer rubrum,
the tight seed pompoms and pixie dust of
sycamores, peeling papery bark
of river birch, and weeping-willow envy,
wishing that I too had festoons of green
to swing through at peak leafing season.

Equally I come from beechnuts and buckeyes,
forest rills and wee crayfish, even the delight
of a blazing red eft, as though autumn's colors
reprised in salamander form.

Here are my delights, here is my heart:
a love song to the piedmont, to little hands
in bigger ones, to generations of wonder.