The muddle of a leaf he saw,
The crook, the knotty twig and bough
Define geometry for now.
The universe without a flaw
Trembles between a rotten trunk
And streams and oceans of the grass.
The weather has been clear for days,
The hummingbird a little drunk.
The earliest dribble of a rain
Will bring his flimsy rafters down;
And every elegance upthrown,
Between the rotten and the dead
Or high above the unperceiving
And dull confusions of the living,
Float down bewildered to the mud.
Most of the artisans who know
The immanence of death, prefer
The wind to be philosopher
And tell the fragile where they go.
Or anyway they hope to hear
The murmur long before it comes,
All music in the bough that thrums
And shreds the rootlet to the air.
But after all the hell it took
To glue his spittle to a leaf,
It seems he has enough of grief
To last until the patterns break,
The alleyways and pinnacles
Of web go down to rearrange
A world less intricate and strange,
A rubble bare of roof and walls.
Meanwhile he leaves to those who care
The huddle and the dream of fear.
He wears a diamond in his ear,
And sees the dancers leap in air,
Both his amusement and his feast.
He mirrors, from a thousand flies,
The thousand summers of his eyes
His miracle makes manifest.
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