On the uncountable nature of things.

I.

Thus, not the thing held in memory, but this:
The fruit tree with its scars, thin torqued branches;

The high burnished sheen of morning light
Across its trunk; the knuckle-web of ancient knots,


II.

The swift, laboring insistence of insects —
Within, the pulse of slow growth in sap-dark cores,

And the future waiting latent in fragile cells:
The last, terse verses of curled leaves hanging in air —

And the dry, tender arc of the fruitless branch.


III.

Yes: the tree's spine conditioned by uncountable
Days of rain and drought: all fleeting coordinates set

Against a variable sky — recounting faithfully
The thing as it is — transient, provisional, changing

Constantly in latitude — a refugee not unlike
Us in this realm of exacting, but unpredictable, time.


IV.

And only once a branch laden with perfect
Fruit — only once daybreak weighed out perfectly by

The new bronze of figs, not things in memory,
But as they are here: the roar and plough of daylight,

The perfect, wild cacophony of the present —
Each breath measured and distinct in a universe ruled


V.

By particulars — each moment a universe:
As when under night heat, passion sparks — unique,

New in time, and hands, obedient, divine,
As Desire dilates eye — pulse the blue-veined breast,

Touch driving, forging the hungering flesh:
To the far edge of each moment's uncharted edge —


VI.

For the flesh too is earth, desire storm to the marrow —
Still — the dream of simplicity in the midst of motion:

Recollection demanding a final tallying of accounts,
The mind, loyal clerk, driven each moment to decide —

Even as the tree's wood is split and sweat still graces
The crevices of the body, which moment to weigh in,

For memory's sake, on the mobile scales of becoming.


— Ellen Hinsey