ripe
for experiment:
dissect, slice, scrape, magnify
what is above (its glories), watch.
What are feelings
to this caste (not so pale) of
cell wall upon cell wall, death
of pine denoting structures
all of life, of thought? Watch
out : too-close attention
can trip you up, failing
to see the fall, though fall
affects not pine’s pining
nor pine’s green swards
needles or (under the glass)
swords that are poised to pique.
Will you notice how they are
not yet falln? How the sheath
of needle-shoot falls back
exposing their long-lived
majesty? Lo: a stand
of pine, and how, below,
twinflower bows?
O slow-twisting
serrate pairs of pins you rise
above the cellular and all
metaphor, vainglory, above
related fruit and shoot
buds stickywhite and resinous,
above all conic bloom and fall and
so mucronate you aspire
poking forth to prick holes
in all this, this Caledonian sky.
