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by Rachel Hadas
In what used to be a vegetable garden
but this year is a wilderness of perennials,
a garter snake pours itself into a clump of bee balm.
The tail end vanishes. What else to see?
Breathing invisibilities.
Eyes behind the trees.
Deer bear cougar fox coyote fisher cat
(raccoons and skunks and chipmunks are less shy):
breathing invisibilities. The trees themselves—
that stand of maples networked
by plastic capillaries
to catch the sap in season—
how is it that I never sensed before
their strong roots probing downward,
their branches yearning up
through goldenrod and brambles to the sky?
Their spines, poise, courage, trust,
those long ardent arms?
Where was I all those years?
Limited to the scrim of what I saw.
Now carrying home a fraction of the hillside’s
Bounty, apples, berries,
and freighted with the double cargo life
gifts us with when we’re lucky,
I look at what is watching me behind
the leaf screen; try to pay
attention to the season,
the golden afternoon, that shifting cloud,
the rustle of a snake
all but invisible through pregnant silence.
Breathing invisibilities:
Whose were those eyes? What was the thrumming music
behind the trees? The train
barreling through the tunnel
toward light again.
Dream myth narration archetype
allegory pilgrimage frozen section:
stop. Anatomize.
Go with a burst of music.
Fireworks. Again. Again.
Stop: the light of joy
exploding in the dark.