Tree, Ice, Window (December 13, 2000)
I.
This doubling of age,
increments gained, like a shadow’s
flesh, ever flowering, ever diminishing,
consuming all.
And having gained stature,
what of the syllables lost in the blur,
the fecund process
unnoticed, unheard.
Reciprocity of motion, the leaf’s descent.
II.
Bent under the hour’s weight, it
departs untouched,
aloof,
yet watched and not alone,
enduring its slow release
as the morning deepens.
III.
The eyelid droops, then opens,
defying gravity and those things heavier than air,
and opening, rescinds
all notion of secrecy.
Somewhere the voice expends its energy
and lies fallow,
like a storm awaiting the perfect
moment, then appears
in all its arterial splendor,
tunneling through the night’s long reach
and the transparent dream.
Or a hand draws the shade.
An older poem, from the “vault.” I barely remember writing it.
O at the Edges 