In The Carolinas - Wallace Stevens

"The lilacs wither in the Carolinas.
Already the butterflies flutter above the cabins.
Already the new-born children interpret love
In the voices of mothers.

Timeless mother,
How is it that your aspic nipples
For once vent honey?

The pine-tree sweetens my body
The white iris beautifies me."

In order to understand any Wallace Stevens poem you must first assume a mind that already sees itself as extended into the landscape, with only the vaguest of borders between what is, at any one time, the self or something else.  

More than anything, this particular poem is about time, and how life enacts a process that is both full of change and also repeating, answering to what is present and what is not present, the past and the future.  "Already," "Already," "Timeless," "For once."

Like in so many of Stevens' shorter poems, he creates a portrait of a place, that could be the mind or could be a territory, making the wandering myths that he creates one with the the body and the land.  Processes and flows.

I have no idea what he means by 'aspic nipples', though.