Evidence everywhere: accumulation.
Leaves atremble and narratives of branches
ramifying, so ever more connections
stay unfinished nor ever to be finished.
Do we not all have separate destinations?
Not that it matters. Aching opalescence
held us all spellbound, motionless, atingle,
balanced like sun and rain before a rainbow,
thunder purring and lightning white as daylight.
After the storm passed, all the world was gleaming,
glossy, almost lubricious with potential,
each blade of grass a dagger in the morning,
each leaf a goblet, brimming, winking, ready
to repay some small measure of night’s thunder.
Couples stood tiptoe, trembling at departure,
kissing, breathing Oh, let me touch your wisdom;
let me then taste reciprocally your beauty.
More than mere iridescence—transformation.
Recall the dark face, thunder cowled at midnight.
Recall the bright face, rinsed clean for separation
as we’re making our several preparations,
so many roads diverging in the greenwood,
putting on the inevitable blinders—
I must keep to my path and my path only—
closing our ears to thunder and cicadas,
closing our eyes to all those trembling branches,
meekly turning our backs on opalescence,
on the jewels of potential transformation,
getting ready to go back down the mountain.