The place where the wind blows from
Copper bitter chestnut
snapping quietly wide,
ah, here you are:
as He walks by, no,
as the God runs by
cold, opaque, spring forests,
their fruits which at this stage
are at best metaphysical
cease to reiterate their promise.
As is well known,
these few seasons like bridges,
their unforgiving height, their loneliness,
the way they grant safe passage
only to the guilty,
have not been holy for a long time.
And yet, and yet,
copper bitter chestnut
were you, until now, holding your breath
because you too noticed it:
the astringent pine sap
gathering as a droplet
on the tip of His nose.
And all His jewelry which I loved
is revealed as delicate, vain.
As I see it now,
what I had loved
was the assurance of this happiness
that those brilliant gemstones,
deep green,
which go by many names
and which I knew as “memory,”
had promised.
My God, was it You who was decorated
in the open secret
that I, along with my brothers and sisters,
even if we were not righteous
at least we were sane
in this happiness?
Young woods,
you only just barely
survived being razed.
Once again, you narrowly avoided
being split open
for a parking lot,
only because it was here
that He was introduced to me as a mendicant
after a common prize.
Whether that prize was exoneration
or, forgive me, its fruit,
we had nothing in common
as friends
and so, by and by,
I was left on my own to worship you.