When the leaves fall
and cover the concrete
with their daring script,
we pause to read their asemic form,
a kind of language universal lodged
deep in our unconscious minds.
With curve and line,
join and stem,
these nothing words reform
again with each gust of wind.
Or pinioned by grass and rain
these natural letters
in the language of leaves
remain - in situ -
and slowly curl and colour,
shimmer with dew,
glisten in sunlight, revealing
their inscription, thus:
*O friend whoe’er you are
I feel through every leaf
The pressure of your hand,
Which I return,
And thus upon our journey
Linked together, let us go.
Afterword
Poets need good titles and The Language of Leaves was one title waiting to be acted upon. The poems in the sequence I -V are little narratives: a Victorian poet waits in his conservatory for tea, an ever-observant women searches the pavements for treasures, a Japanese princess practices her calligraphy for a distant lover, a correspondence ensues between scientists father and son, a painter patiently rehearses a single stroke of the brush. There are both real and fictional people featured here. You don’t need to know who they are. The Introduction and Conclusion are poems-proper about leaves and how we read the script of their movement and being.
There is some sampling here of existing texts, and credits should include Cid Corman, Joanne Harris, Arthur Waley, The Darwins father and son, Nicholas Serota, , Francis Ponge and Walt Whitman.
This collection is inspired by a series of five images in the medium of print and stitch by Alice Fox, to whom these words are dedicated.