THE VINE

I believe, I said,
In the resurrection of all the dumb things.

All around me,
The elephant-skinned elms

Were fluttering their huge green leaves,
Those trees which had stood

All winter long
Like big animals in a boneyard.

The breeze died in the leaves
And the elms held their leaves out,

Flat, big as porches in the hot air.

I see, I said, and made note of it,
The red current in the rose stem.

Perhaps the trick is to sleep deep enough,
Or to close one's eyes before the fall shakes

All the colors loose.
Then I saw the vine.

Grey and dry,
It climbed high as the house.

It looked deader than driftwood,
Than egg cartons, than a jellyfish

In the basin of a desert.
It will come back, I said,

But I did not believe it,
Although, for years, it had come back.

I mourned that vine.
The next week, it was alive.

The wind tossed its leaves like waves.
It waved at me with its many hands.

When I held my hand
Up to the sun,

I saw all the veins' traceries
Like veins in a leaf.

I felt hope.
The sun winked from behind a cloud.

The vine laughed in the little breeze:
Our world,
Not yours.