These maidenhair ferns were brewed for tea
to soothe a sore throat, cure pleurisy —
their two-inch, humping, whiskered lines
were even strewn on the naturalists' signs.
They sprawled under the spindly buds
of red-root, used to strengthen the blood;
a jewelweed's freckled orange scoops
hung over gnawed leaves; a spicebush drooped;
this wake-robin looked pocked, that ginger torn,
violets' poulticing sprouts had been shorn,
betonys' too — I could find no leaf
that hadn't already come to grief.
Running down the path, now I could see
they were pasted to the bole of every tree;
the plicking I'd thought was rain in my ears
sounded like snips of miniature shears —
their migrant, hungry, adhering strips
made, as I stood there, sawtoothed rips
in thousands more seedlings. Soon
they'd each find a twig and start to spin;
one moon-rise not too far from this,
fresh from a crackling chrysalis,
their tawny, fluttering selves would come
tilting to this wild geranium,
alight on finer, fewer legs
and discharge arsenals of eggs.

Poem by Elise Partridge