A Commentary

By tree I meant fire

its long arms bent down

to me. I mean me

bent down over the lake

–all this damn explication

moon-business, me-ing, not being

the light. In wait for the Lady.

I bent down.

First mistake.

Then believing the

showy extravagance of being seen,

even worse. Light with its drama

of things as they are.

Well they ain’t.

A tree spends its whole life

thinking it’s a man.

Waits and waits

because it’s seen and

never knew what it saw

was the beloved’s offering;

the imago, coy image the light gave 

to remember me by, voluptuous silence

of another tree, its leaves sealed off

behind the clouds.

But not clouds,

and not me. 

Who?

Just wait and it pulls,

and one day I’ll come home

the way all images come home

I bend down into the water

and my face comes off in your hands.