Archive 10/24/09 - (2)

   

Epiphany's Leaves

                                                                  

 

With a small container of garlic-and-olive-oil-infused hummus,

A package of petite crackers, and a plastic knife,

Hidden in my all-purpose burlap knapsack,

 

Which I slip, surreptitiously, past the lady taking tickets,

I enter the Missouri Botanical Garden's pristine purlieus,

My appetite exceeding my excitement on just being here.

 

If this is the worst transgression I've ever committed —

Bringing a picnic lunch when I know food isn't permitted —

Most likely, my soul's sinful trespass will be forgiven.

 

After all, I'm a frequent and highly appreciative visitor,

A devotee of these premises sacred to me,

Who comes to this retreat at least three times, each six weeks,

 

Even more frequently, each October's-end season,

When its epiphanies exhilarate my spirit to its limit.

It's the trees, their ever-evolving gradations of colors,

 

Their sense of rendering a renaissance from the throes of death,

As if they're decorating the sky's walls, ceilings, transepts, vaults

With frescoes newly painted by Giotto and Cimabue,

 

In hues of red, scarlet, crimson, burgundy, vermillion, cabernet,

Amber, umber, burnt sienna, rust, yellow, orange —

A Joseph-coat of nature's most arresting sunrise/sunset gestures

 

And those last, gasping greens, seen before they submit,

When winter's traces, hints, tugs, rubs, and nudges

Begin shivering, ever so discreetly, the flesh on my arms and neck,

 

Putting me in mind that our time —

That of the trees, the leaves, and, least of all, me — is fast arriving

And that before we awaken from the truth of our deep sleep,

 

Winter will have tempered our steely resolves to persist,

In its bitterly chilled alembics, into spring, beyond,

All the way through summer, to another fall, like this one,

 

When, with a degree of providence, good fortune, kismet, luck,

I'll again be an October's-end visitor,

Picnicking on garlic-and-olive-oil-infused hummus, in the garden.

 

 

                                               

 

10/24/09 - (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
       

 

 
   
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