FROM SOME INVISIBLE BLOSSOMING TREE

by Maurice Manning

Shadows now troubled by the wind
fall down on mine almost unmoving
for a moment of being to tick away,
or rather to tick into deeper Time—
I’ll give it a capital T for now—
as a yellow leaf or petal blows
and tumbles upward in the air,
a syllable of creation telling
its tiny portion of the tale,
and meanwhile, other voices—birds
are some, and sighing trees—tell theirs,
and the muted voice of the stream below,
too far away for me to hear,
so I imagine it in the chorus,
if that is what this is, a world
singing itself, inviting me
to clear my throat and sing along
as the tiger lily opens its own
from the undergrowth it’s grown above
and the song is only the song of love
that isn’t always in the world,
but it is, it’s always in the world,
and any thing that sings will hear it,
and any thing that can’t will fear it.

Maurice Manning has recently published his eighth book of poetry, Snakedoctor.  He lives with his family in Kentucky and teaches at Transylvania University.