I sat there, listening to the breeze,
Only there was no breeze, I was inside,
the windows were closed. It was like wind
in the dry leaves, curled up stiff
like old people, when their chests have started
to long for their abdomens, they’ve been apart
for so many years. And their heads
have acquired an increasing curiosity about
the composition of the sidewalk; their heads
have taken it into their minds to do
research on the probable source of in-
spiration for Schwitters and Rauschenberg.
They want a glimpse of the many universes
Mark Tobey said he saw in paving stones.
This is how curled up those stiff, light leaves are,
curled up as my father on his last voluntary visit
to the hospital, as I walked with him down the hall,
my hand on his back, curved and bowed
as a boulder, but light as a leaf. This is how stiff
those light leaves are, still stuck to the tree,
and hissing in the breeze like corn flakes,
though it’s February, and there are no leaves left
on the trees, and I am inside, there is no breeze.
I sit here, listening to the breeze hiss in the leaves
somewhere along the Occipital Ridge and I wonder
at the immensity of the canyon beneath these steep cliffs
that I don’t dare look down.