Sticks and Stones

How strange that nature takes
A sphere and fabricates a stake,

That galaxies so naturally round
Come to rest on level ground,

As if the solar energy en route
To stars were tripped and tied up by a root;

But how delicately the forces pick
Round planets for their sticks,

How trees and plants and branches make
Our curved environment go straight,

Substituting linearity and desire
For the circle’s clannish tire,

Chopping up our selfish loops
Into aimless forest groups,

Expanding our concentric grooves
In the planet’s centrifuge,

Adding an infinity of feet
To a world where both ends meet,

Where, ironically, this globe of trees
And sticks, this paradise of weeds,

Trying to recall its youth
Or looking to its opposite for truth,

Prefers the wholly circular
For seeds, as if the sphere

Of flowers and of buds, the forbidden fruit
Of fruit itself were a kind of absolute:

Life is careful what it chooses
When it loves, and reproduces.

May 24th, 1987, noon to 12:30
November 14th, 1987, 11AM, Bedford