Aimless Scribbling

White Snakeroot leaves.
Dark green in dim light.
Leaf Miner playgrounds.
Scribbled eating-tunnels.
Security spelled out -
     safety,
          not death.


Small blue butterfly's
scrambled flight.
Erratic, but
purposeful -
     leaving
          pursuers
               perplexed.


Poets scribble -
incessant inscriptions.
Ordering wayward thoughts.
Focusing patterns, metaphors.
Words come alive -
      released into life!

               -Clem Nagel
                 4/19/2004

Notes:
White Snakeroot, Eupatorium rugosum,
grows in the shade along the forest and
meadow edges. The large, toothed, heart-like
leaves, host the tiny, flattened larvae of a leaf
miner insect. The larvae of a range of insects
eat and tunnel in the spongy layer between
the upper and lower layers of the leaf.
Usually the tunnels cause only cosmetic damage.

As children, before we could read, we would
choose and pick Snakeroot leaves and pretend
to "read" to each other the intricate patterns
created in the leaves. We told each other that
we were discovering special secret messages!

The White Snakeroot bears small, long-lasting,
white, star-like flower clusters in the late summer
and into the fall. 

              (Comments are welcome . . . just poke the word
                   "comment" at the bottom)