The leaf held up to the sun possesses
Veins, a midrib, lamina, It exchanges gases through the stomata, Oxygen rises from the parenchyma, The entire forest is marked by leaves Heaving a sea of breath that fills The lungs of toads and seeps into spiracles And carry the trill of the whippoorwills. It doesn’t take much, a bitter smell Of burning branches, the birds still sing, The leaves are calm, but the air is dull, And heaven is gone from the evening. And people roam the trail, they hate The dark, they smell the bitter air And hate the hope, they hate the hint Of morning that the leaves prepare, If night didn’t come, then day would be Too bright, so night contains a light Brighter than the sun, stars and starflowers, And burning in the eyes of acolytes, In the morning, the stream will glisten Between the stalagmites, and outside Vapors will rise and frogs will lay Their strings of eggs, and the hawk will glide.
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The bear didn’t mind getting stung on the nose.
A direct line linked his tongue to his brain. Sometimes he romped and licked his lips, Sometimes he hid in the cave from the rain. Truck drivers know when everything is right, The engine, the direction and the will, The best part of the rolling highway Rising the slope of the Midwest hill. When your mind is together with what you want, You can feel the ripple to your fingertips, Angels duck into internet cafes To write that you’ve won two scholarships. And there was Cinderella. You would hardly think That there on the hearth she found a ring. She had to believe that stuff about the pumpkin She couldn’t believe her own bedazzling. |
Yaacov David Shulman
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