And so was I also taught: the branch
where an invisible bird
surveys the landscape, the flat
horizon toward which,
supposedly, everything aspires.
All things defined,
reducible to a few
quick strokes to show again
the mechanism beneath,
the fatalism which determines
where they go. Here too
on the table:
nothing but a bowl,
a cup; from where the worm
looks up, the shadow and smudge,
the last figs given by the tree.
Leaves belong to summer as shells do to tortoises
they are fate accompanying fruit to the table
listing, matting, beckoning, warm simple glory
Invariably winter will brown in their absence
put butter in a hot skillet, observe the effect
hjakajohnleake