Rain Forest

Poetry

At dawn and all through the day
the wattled bellbird gongs
as if appointing the moments
for faunal instinct, floral bloom.
One by one, the strange coevolution
of leaf and caterpillar,
flower and hummingbird,
herbivore and carnivore resumes,
and all that exists either drinks or drips.

​

Sunset comes early to the wet mountain
and ebbs in the long blue shadows
of quetzal feathers or dangling sloths,
in the strange devolution of day and night
and their infinite exploitations of disguise,
where the clear night-frog harbors
its conspicuous heart.

Sheryl Massaro is an oil painter, poet, and photographer based in historic Frederick, MD, where she is a stu- dio artist at The Griffin Art Center. Massaro holds an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry from The American University and studied with several key poets, including Allen Ginsberg, Stanley Kunitz, W.S. Merwin, and Galway Kinnell. She has had residencies at Yaddo (New York) and St. Peter’s (Canada) colonies.