LEAF SUITE

Passaggio - Presto:  Two Leaves of Bread, Please

            It would be nice to live

            among people speaking

            many languages we don tall

            understande.  Way wood

            lauf & lauf aht our offen

            & small misunderstandings:

            “Oh! You wants to see my

            fish” wood really geht

            us goingk.  Way wood traymble

            wilt laufter until we all rain.           

Allemande:  This Leaf

It would be nice to know

meteors—not so much

their relationships to knots of

dense material & comets &

Earth, but whether or not

they feel something like ‘luck’

at the chance to appear in a moonless

dark like that with the first

streaks of dawn.  I’ll try to hang on

until 2035, then I’ll try to die

slowly enough for you to take

my soft body to join the meteor

shower.  Don’t worry if you can’t find me

or it’s too late.  This leaf will suffice.

Courante:  Lēaf, Loof & Laub   

            It would be nice to play

            trees as though they were already

            instruments.  Luthiers are lucky.

            They can look at Carpathian

            Spruce or Redwood & see

            Tonewood & Timbre, Grain

            & Figure & hear Cantatas,

            Jácaras, Toccatas & Fugues;

            can plane & play a primeval

            forest long before the lathe.

            Sometimes a luthier will put an ear

            to a tree & the tree will sing a breathy

            song accompanied by a lute of its own

            making.  Imagine that!  A ready pair

            of lungs & a lute of its own making.

Sarabande:  Two Leaves like Lace

            It would be nice to be

            see-through.  To have trans-

            parent skin.  I would never wear

            clothes, would you?  What

            a pair we’d be, being, walking

            down any calle or street, looking

            for all the world like vertical

            bodies of rivulets feeding

            rivers that empty into oceans of see-

            through cielo or sky.

Bourée:  The Poets Take Leave

            It would be nice to have

            time a-plenty to replant

            enough of the absent

            —scattered seedlings &

            ash along the arroyos—

            in the Sonoran Desert

            so that it becomes verdant

            valley once more.  We could

            do that & sit among them—the

            trees & the dead.  Talk & read.

            I apologize for neglecting to leaf

            through your pages again until hearing

            of your deaths.  What I read now in

            your leaves is this:  Don’t worry at not

            having time enough.  We have this circle.

Gigue:  Leaf-Fossil-Song

            It would be nice to speak

            with rocks & land forms

            for one afternoon or two

            to get a better sense of being

            & time.  After all, who isn’t 

            part moon?  Soon enough, though,

            I’d miss it, wouldn’t you?  The human

            voice caught on a quick breeze, carried

            like a blood-red leaf while singing

            to the rocks about a circle of rocks

            speaking & acting like humans & trees.