WATER LILLIES AND ADVICE

Yellow, faithful in petals,
bouncing from intended green,
a surround, stemming toward the sun.

How the eye obeys its given
limits, as the curve of leaf
designs its own exactness.

What link informs another?
Beware the lays of magic,
Chaucer told his son, Lowys.

Consult the astrolabe when
rocks appear to disappear,
he said. The sun, the moon.

Their closeness to the crust caused
roiling tides that swallowed rock.
Lay sorcerers to rest, my son.