The purple-brown-black-copper-colored leaves of the plum;
the scent of
lilacs;
the young girl in white, without shoes, racing uphill;
a
young couple, her light skirt over tights, strolling;
people waiting,
without nattering or impatience,
while the frail old ones,
of which
I am one,
board the bus like time standing still;
the gnarled
mechanic, totally blue-jeaned,
wearing scarlet socks in
Birkenstocks;
Sanskrit in the shade:
these are my world,
my
novel.
I cannot stitch them together.
Why must I write?
Born
American,
I am too restless,
even on the coast-line of eternity,
to just wander,
enjoy.
Compelled
to do
something,
I write this novel
bridging nothing,
containing
elements,
only elements:
zinc, sulphur,
copper,
plutonium
fused together
by an eye,
by the ecstasy of
being
in the sunshine
beneath the
roiling drift of the
cottonwood's cotton:
turbulent stars
against the brilliance.
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