A Leaf Alights Upon a Lawn

The drying distance laying long
a leaf alights upon a lawn
through streaming dying splints of sun
the long green ship's path slowly run
as through the light it twists and falls
as old-turned pages drift through halls
of dusty desperate quietude
the leaf-page cries from which it's hewed
the tree its slaughtered father-form
the mansion-forest from which it's torn
to grind and pulp its flesh has made
the page on which this poem is laid.

But what of the tree, and what of the light
that was sacrificed, this gift to our sight
torn down so I might jot this line
a piece of nature fain divine
but what's the value of a poem
compared to a forest in which to roam
that like a spring in a fresh greeny grove
a thousands muses to green poets flowed
and from each mind a thousand poems came
and each one's lines could put this to shame.

So better I write on the back of some scrap
than a new page of paper, a new tree to tap
and let it discarded or untended fall
dropped from my notes to the floor of a hall
let it slip under the great wooden door
that threshold that grew from a dark forest floor.
It sprouted from bodies of dead men and leaves
and grew up in splendor and newness and ease
and each day and second it welcomed the sun
and grew a new branch and new its bark sprung
and as a wood cutter's ax lay not so long
the tree's final leaf alights on the lawn.