Morning Dialogue

That way the moonflower and the sunflower this
and the garden path that winds between
how can I know what they may mean
in the confusions of my delight?
Old mother oak whose ferrule is on my forehead
whose mast is on my tongue
tell me, for I am young,
what language I should speak?

Speak with the language of the leaf
when what you mean is brief
and with the language of the bough
when what you mean is more than now
but also learn while you are young
speech is not only of the tongue.

This calyx of cerulean blue
now magnified by one vast drop of dew
becomes tremendous in the sun
and every one
of these small dots of cinnamon
seems like a world about to run
into the fiery histories of space
how can I face
these miracles and have no speech?

I reach from earth to sky, from one to other,
have no sister and no brother
from the dark underworld
crammed with all riches and all death
seek out my way to leaf and breath.

What love is this
that can dispense with words
or all but such as bud and fade and fall
heedless of the song of birds
once more to the earth that buries?

North wind begins the autumn flurries
the solitary leaf descends
and something ends.
You too must die and so must I
yet each with differing speech can say —

No, I’ve forgotten. But something simple.
That night is night and day is day.
Or that the languages of sap and blood
are only wood and word
and therefore good.