Before the Tree

When talent breaks its last rewarded string
and grace released its furtive song
all the bells in tandem then will ring
and sandwiches revive us.
Onward, moth of ages!
ordinary plates
relinquish vertiginous portals
for the leaf is not to be
and the dream is on its knee
before the tree.

Here in the garden of undeclared saints
there are limits on the brooks you can withdraw.
As fast as reason eats the valley's sun,
our day is done.
The garden smells of paint.
No windows grow upon the thorny fruit
and shoots of lemon colored uniforms
drape over arbors of lost rumors.
There is no edge to it.
We hear voices when there's no one there.

Head crowned with solitude
seeing far, roots far below
entangled with the huddled distant others,
nourishing the accidental and unseen.
Who knows if your heart is joyous or bitter
or your gaze more intent than rambled
flooded inward or released to be born
of colored air?
We hear only a rhythmic converse
with the teeming wind.

When windows creep upon the failed fedora
and angels black the weary Diaspora
the fantasies collide us.
Inward, sudden thunder's beacon
cavity of mire
unleash the fluted planet
for the best is not to be
the irredentist forest flees
before the tree.

[irredentist: one who advocates the recovery of territory culturally or historically related to one's nation but now subject to a foreign govt. From Italian for "unredeemed".]

Oct/Nov 1998