My Leaves

‘I feel as if I’m losing all my leaves. The branches, and the wind, and the rain. I don’t know what’s happening anymore.’ – Anthony (‘The Father’)

Struggling wordlessly into the light

Startling eruption of limb

As green as green has ever been

Flowing and fumblingly growing

Out of dark moist cloister

Hail Mary

Blessed is the fruit

Of thy womb

Pray for us now¹

We are born

Sun-seekers

Gargantuan

Being-eaters

To be eaten

Composable

Cooperation of cell

Atomistic apostles of Aten

Those on Earth come from your hand as you made them

When you have dawned they live

When you [have gone] they die

You yourself are lifetime, one lives by you

All eyes are on your beauty until you set

All labour ceases when you rest in the west²

Deliciously off-kilter

Younglings

Rare and delicate

Star-fire flowers

Bestowers of heart

Murderous and monstrous

Little mesdames et messieurs

Wyrdlings of woe and wonder

Gigglous adorations

Time’s incarnations

An ash I know, Yggdrasil its name,

With water white is the great tree wet;

Thence come the dews that fall in the dales,

Green by Urth’s well does it ever grow.

…Laws they made there, and life allotted

To the sons of men, and set their fates.³

Each and every

A-symmetry

Or fault

Is ready to take that shape

And form uniquely our own

If only we can survive

The violence

Of glorious

Juvenescence

That most exciting journey to behold

For the gods and the old

The Spirit is not born and does not die

It does not come into being or cease

It is not destroyed with the passing of the body

So why do you cry?⁴

Broadening boughs

Pushing down roots

Weathering wizening

Procreators

Strange standing waves

Beautifully cracked

Hallow vessels

That sing when touched

Strengthening to girth

Heavier crowns

Good God

Grace a’me

Bless mine

Hold time

Momentarily

Quick spinning seasons

Where everything speeds

Achingly open spaces

Free for next year’s trees

Identities distilled

To essence

Sapping slowly

Dissolving memory

Hinting of patiently

Waiting eternity

All living things decay

They cannot stay.

Carefully

To gain your

Salvation.

Cleave

The bonds

That bind.

Reflect, refract

The undying light⁵

Though we may grieve

There is no staying grief

We are life’s loves

Labours lost

That leaf

Then leave

This poem is dedicated to Sir Anthony Hopkins.

The Father (film version)

Footnotes

From “The Hail Mary”, derived from the Gospel of Luke, circa 85 CE. ↩︎
Miriam Lichtheim, translation from Great Hymn to the Aten, circa 1350 BCE, “Ancient Egyptian Literature: Volume II: The New Kingdom” 2006 CE. ↩︎
Henry Adams Bellows, translation of “Völuspá”, original circa 960 CE, Poetic Edda, lines 19–20, translation 1936 CE. ↩︎
Bhagavad Gita 2:20, circa 200 BCE: my re-interpretation. ↩︎
Gautama Buddha, selections from his last teachings and words, circa 486 BCE, Mahāparinibbāna Sutta. My poetic re-interpretation. See also Mary Oliver’s wonderful, “The Buddha’s Last Instruction”, House of Light, 1992 CE. ↩︎