From Variations on a Theme

LEAF LESSON

Even in pain you listen. Watch they say,

Like this. You nearly can, the new ones grow

So huge so quickly. On the patio

Each noon a patchier sunshine fights its way

Through webs of leaves held blade by famished blade

Taut to the light, repeating raptly: Green.

The wind is subtler; treetops shift between

Thrust and attainment, leaving you in shade.

Hurry they shout: these crowns of shadow dense

With us, our lives, will starve you; shade means die!

-Foreshortened, late, a season's almost over

Whose close will see that massy eloquence

Of foliage overspread and close the sky,

Shunting the sunlight somewhere else forever.