Poems From Providence - The Poet's Press

These crows are not informers.
A shard of stained glass falls to the ground:
a saint’s eye, a halo chip, a puzzle
piece of a forgotten benediction.
An acorn descends, a leaf
tears away from the structured tree.
Why should one leaf among its classless brethren
defy the order and symmetry of oakdom
to make its assuredly fatal plunge?
The acorn must fall,
the squirrel must do his duty
and bury it. Even a new oak
that springs unintended from its sepulcher
is doomed, each tree
another jailhouse, a jabbering asylum
under an iron sky.
But a leaf — a leaf has a chance —
a wind might catch it, a bird
might seize it from an updraft
and carry it to freedom.
Who knows what becomes of one over there?
Maybe an anarchy of leaves, maybe
a touch-me-not defiance of order,
maybe they plant themselves
on any tree they please —
oak and ash and willow and holly,
the plane and the pine,
a jostle of maple and cedar and birch —
melting pot trees in a jigsaw forest —
or maybe a peaceful wood, each uniform tree
striving its best toward the eternal light? —