Clues

This branch says
"I grow straight because
I am strong and clean and true, and here
I split apart because
there was in me a need to be
more and more and more
and more."

This lamppost says
"Do you remember in my arching neck
the horses at the battle of Bouvines and all
the smoke and dust and tumult of the flashing swords?
Or is it just
the dancing lower of a nodding bloom
in springtime I evoke?"

Watch the world and wait
for memory's bell to sound and draw
the shade up on resemblance.
Each brick's a road;
each hue a history.
Every turn of line and angle speaks
of other lives and worlds and spare
necessities. So they teach
and so we learn if with a quiet mind
we feel the bridge's red upon our eyes.

December 9 1999