Out of the slick mud at the bottom of the pond.
Out of the muck of cattail root-scum.
Out of salamanders, frogs, the horrible carp.
Out of slime and dung. Out of cloud-shaped pond-deeps.
Out of cow-wallows and the stink of bears.
Out of algal bloom, rank watermeal.
Out of coontail, pondweed, purple loosestrife.
Out of the anal glands of Morris Wachtel’s beavers,
their castoreum and urine. Out of the gelatin
extracted from boiled hides, tendons, cartilage,
ligaments, horns, and bones of Johnson’s cows.
Out of fallen and rotting aspen, larch, birch.
Out of saprophytic fungi and heart-rot.
Out of punky, decaying touchwood.
Out of the deliquescence of Coprinus comatus.
Steven Rood is a lawyer in Oakland and was a finalist in the 2019 National Poetry Series. Omnidawn will be publishing his book.