ISSUE: Winter 1980
The design of the fingerprint is to hold
everything smooth, the design of water
to make graceful all it can touch, and
we meet here, the quince leaf in hand
in the rain. The old tree shrugs
in September, a knobbed branch sways,
and leaves by fruit keep a fragile hold
to wood. A thorned vine of blackberry
spirals into the trunk’s dark hollow
to root. Under the arch of a limb I bow
over the leaf in hand to find
vein by vein the cause and design
of all the eye can touch, the cave
of a dying tree, the doorway of light
tattered with glistening leaves.
And here inside is home,
the graceful ruin of the world.
everything smooth, the design of water
to make graceful all it can touch, and
we meet here, the quince leaf in hand
in the rain. The old tree shrugs
in September, a knobbed branch sways,
and leaves by fruit keep a fragile hold
to wood. A thorned vine of blackberry
spirals into the trunk’s dark hollow
to root. Under the arch of a limb I bow
over the leaf in hand to find
vein by vein the cause and design
of all the eye can touch, the cave
of a dying tree, the doorway of light
tattered with glistening leaves.
And here inside is home,
the graceful ruin of the world.
