In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

31 THE LATE APRIL GARDEN The irises and hydrangeas as I walk aside abide in their season. Mallards congregate on shadowed grass; they file out, all seven, young fathers, fatherless as if to inspect the dust path they will tread, purposeless after mating. I turn with them, aware of separations, though this air diffuses the light around edges of dark and bright. The hydrangea’s pink puffsurfaces hold spherical stuff for sight, serving to ignite the firing of my ganglia. So existence issues from an energy-burst, so tissues support this seeing inside a me, who knows of dead as well as of living—feels small and alive, humbled by this wide brightness which equally for all spreads the visible enigma time, in its impermanence. The silhouette of a pine limb on the coming evening refuses to succumb to the wide Earth’s turning. Pines stand angled, one plumb straight, being itself, and in reflection 32 ripple-layered on the pond. Its distant brokenness in wind fractures the imaged boughs, pauses, restores them in this moment re-imagined. It fills my breath with its whim this air of shining in mind. Each waver of pine tree bright on the water feels a part of me, while reflections let my mind and the world interact. Then, wind-shattered as I can’t predict the wet reunites with what I am not— though thought keeps a mirrored light. ...

Share