Po-biz is hop-lez. Herez sumpin ta read while thugh Indushtry iz on yakkashunn.

from BRANCH, ALMOND



It begins like this, on a dark autumn day.
The wind is blowing, you don't know
where it leads. Pussy-willow, dogwood
wave their last leaves. The lead-gray sky


shrouds the universe in its camouflage
of sleep and melancholy. Ravens
mark your place in the book of dying
and being born. Goldfinch paces his cage.


*


In Bruegel's panorama, the herdsmen
follow a ridge in the foreground, drawing on
their oxen, charcoal outlines seemingly stolen
from the Lascaux caves. In the distance


storms lash a somber, mountainous coast
helmeted with desolate castle;
shipwrecks ornament the entrance
to the harbor. A wintry violence


looms in murk above muted ruddiness,
ramshackle roofs of valley and village;
Bruegel grins in the teeth of all this rage,
shepherding home his cataclysmic canvas.


*


Every leaf bears an image of the tree
(as when the underside of an autumn olive
stands upright, tall – a tiny silver cypress).
Every book bears an image of the Book To Be


and every child bears an image of the singer
(almond-eyed) who left a humming shadow
in the neighborhood – that summer cicada
shrunk to autumn cricket (fading, lingering).


*