The leaf turned to shadow

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W i n d o w   D r e s s i n g

Countryside

Union, South Carolina

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As from dark orchard leaves, from quiet scripts
where each shape sends its tendril reaching --
circle and line, the swaddled bud, the petiole
sprung, an envelope tendered.

By a window, the infant
turns, rooting
toward the breast,
sun-lit,
the mother humming.
(Those far things, sources
of power and
regret,
cliffs and waves,
continue
at a distance.)

Here you’ll find
a name scrawled in the bark --
last words, left to chance
and strangers.
There, the black ant, burdened
by a crumb, and the weight
of her lacquered armor,
crossing -- climbing,
switching, doubling
back -- gnarl and crevice and
cul de sac. 

Pinch-waisted,

driven on, and trembling,
does she have a notion
of her own, or is it
only species
memory -- so
fearless, so abstract?

because it is winter everywhere,
I spin my cocoon
I dig my heart a grave

Indifferent, a blossom
drifting, the knob swelling,
the leaf turned to
shadow: filigree, smudged.
The petiole now brittle in
the first cold nights.
The burden, relieved,
weighs all the more
from the guilt
of its release.

Too light, too light, like a sudden
waking, the sun in your eyes:
you cannot see for it.

How long will we live
in this leaf-strewn place,
thinking we belong
to the sky?

= Susan Stewart =

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Happy Friday