Have you noticed how many versions and revisions circulate the living air
Only the ghosts never leave
 
Each sentence flowers, back to front and back again
Turning and turning for optimal sun exposure as it leaves
 
Images may be “beautiful” or “devastating”
Translucent against the sun, each approaches its own special value, leafily
 
Your shambly gardens, mother loss, your one-way dialogues with trees
What is it with you and your obsession with leaves
 
There's variation in the number of ray-florets
Each line the sum of the one before, a spiral sequence of leaving
 
Some friends hold grieving within, others leaf out    
This world is too greenful for leaving
 
Have you ever seen such a moon
Appearing and disappearing through the leaves
 
The Melissodes bee has a taste for sunflowers
Green eyes filled with golden angles of light and leaving
 
You once held your son in your palms like a seedling
Yet another metaphor about leaving
 
Beloved children and pets, bad and good days, all green brightness:
Mar, how will you fill your days before leaving
 
The last line holds a unique surface tension
Slant shadow beneath the leaves

Marietta Brill

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