I remember the first time

I saw frost-churned soil,

walking in chill Connecticut air,

the shards crunching

nicely beneath my boot,

with frozen oak leaves

and the trill of unknown winter birds.



Nimium erudio sum:

I am overeducated.

My mind fills immediately

with words:

cryoturbation,

Quercus.

I look for barred wings

or striped,

consult a thousand references

in my head.



But my gaze turns not

inwards,

but rather ravels

a thousand paths

to their varied ends,



a thousand questions

give birth

to a thousand more,



each shoving sharp

from the hard soil

of my assumptions.



For when I heard

the learn'd astronomer,

these many years past,

I walked home after

through freezing clear night-air

and look'd up with newborn awe

upon the stars.