Foliage of Vision
As landscapes richen after rain, the eye
Atones, turns fresh after a fit of tears.
When all the foliage of vision stirs
I glimpse the plump fruit hanging, falling, fallen
Where wasps are sputtering. In the full sky
Time, a lean wasp, sucks at the afternoon.
The tiny black and yellow agent of rot
Assaults the plum, stinging and singing. What
A marvel is the machinery of decay!
How rare the day’s wrack! What fine violence
Went to inject its gall in the glad eye!
The plum lies all brocaded with corruption.
There is no wit in weeping, yet I wept
To hear the insect wrath and rhythm of time
Surround the plum that fell like a leper’s thumb.
The hours, my friend, are felicitous imagery,
Yet I became their image to watch the sun
Dragging with it a scarlet palace down.
The eye attunes, pastoral warbler, always.
Joy in the cradle of calamity
Wakes though dim voices work at lullaby.
Triumph of vision: the act by which we see
Is both the landscape-gardening of our dream
And the root’s long revel under the clipped lawn.
I think of saints with hands pierced and wrenched eyes
Sensational beyond the art of sense,
As though whatever they saw was about to be
While feeling alters in its imminence
To palpable joy; of Dante’s ascent in hell
To greet with a cleansed gaze the petaled spheres;
Of Darwin’s articulate ecstasy as he stood
Before a tangled bank and watched the creatures
Of air and earth noble among much leafage
Dancing an order rooted not only in him
But in themselves, bird, fruit, wasp, limber vine,
Time and disaster and the limping blood.
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