It woke early in the wind
And spoke in the leaves with the air
And set its eyes and six legs upward along the bark

An exuberance roars inside this shell
The carapace that for long years held
Flightless the animal, like new teeth in the shark

Through bark and limb and rain
Through dirt and toward the sun along tree’s plane
A decade of becoming, into the light from the dark

The crack along the spine
The rift of the dead self left, legs entwined
And the shell translucent on its pine ark

The form of the past stares out
Six legs still folded into bark

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