Too thick for the sonnet,
its detail in leaves
too great a catch
for some trawling quatrain;
its spoiled summer's green
breaking like a new sea:
a tide's third pride
rippling the pooled recession.
Behind it, a garden.
In the midst of trees
a Mosaic event:
a rod strikes, a sea
overflows, is flattened
to lace, is wind-stirred leaf:
the wall is released
in a compassion -
spoiled: this new artistry
is degenerate, no bluff,
no rehearsal for flowers,
but a dropping to the drains;
twig skeletons - ugliness
is obviated in obedience:
This is the virtue
of the autumnal wall:
its stark quatrain, its febrile
sonnet - its all!
|