Epistle of the Leaves

“Take courage, Holy Parents of Pharcitae, udes adonitas — no one is immortal.”
~ Inscription in the Cave of the Coffins, Beit She’arim

Bindwood, lovestone, grief’s greenest eraser:
see how the slightest wind ruffles the ivy.
See how they flourish on walls, erupt

in every breach, more unruly than graffiti.
So many signatures, cascading. In the trees,
a bird sings one, sad note and snaps

a brown moth out of the air. Who
authors the scope of what can be seen
or told? I read how Newton took a bodkin

and put it betwixt the eye and the bone
as neare to the backside of his eye as he could.
Imagine the circles of color that pulsed

beneath his lids on the verge of light:
white darke, blewish darke. The eye
was not hurt, he wrote. Though at the fall

of feathers, a sifting of soft dust
from the sill or the eaves, the hand
instinctively flies up to cover the face—

So the green tendrils pin their fragile
geometry against the gate, admitting
what the soul has done in its defense.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.