p

On the Uncountable Nature of Things

 

I.

 

Thus, not the thing held in memory, but this:

The fruit tree with its scars, thin torqued branches;

 

The high burnished sheen of morning light

Across its trunk; the knuckle-web of ancient knots, 

 

 

II.

 

The swift, laboring insistence of insects-

Within, the pulse of slow growth in sap-dark cores,

 

And the future waiting latent in fragile cells:

The last, terse verses of curled leaves hanging in air-

 

And the dry, tender arc of the fruitless branch.

  

 

III.

 

Yes: the tree's spine conditioned by uncountable

Days of rain and drought: all fleeting coordinates set

 

Against a variable sky-recounting faithfully

The thing as it is-transient, provisional, changing

 

Constantly in latitude-a refugee not unlike

Us in this realm of exacting, but unpredictable, time.

  

 

IV.

 

And only once a branch laden with perfect

Fruit-only once daybreak weighed out perfectly by

 

The new bronze of figs, not things in memory,

But as they are here: the roar and plough of daylight,

 

The perfect, wild cacophony of the present-

Each breath measured and distinct in a universe ruled

 

 

V.

 

By particulars-each moment a universe:

As when under night heat, passion sparks-unique,

 

New in time, and hands, obedient, divine,

As Desire dilates eye-pulse the blue-veined breast,

 

Touch driving, forging the hungering flesh:

To the far edge of each moment's uncharted edge-

 

 

VI.

 

For the flesh too is earth, desire storm to the marrow-

 Still-the dream of simplicity in the midst of motion:

 

Recollection demanding a final tallying of accounts,

The mind, loyal clerk, driven each moment to decide-

 

Even as the tree's wood is split and sweat still graces

The crevices of the body, which moment to weigh in,

 

For memory's sake, on the mobile scales of becoming.

 

 

~ Ellen Hinsey ~